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THE BOY 


FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

A YOUNG PEOPLE’S STORY 



SOPHIE SWETT 


Author of ** Pennyroyal and Mint,^^ ** Flying Hill Farm,*^ “ Captain PoIIy/^ 
“ Tom Pickering of ^Scutney,'^ ** The Mate of the Mary Ann/^ 

** Coh^n Thistletop/' ** Bilberry Boys and Girls,'^ 
etc., etc. 




“ Now this knighte was of a high hearte and rode forth valiantly to 
the wars ; and he wiste not that the day would be lost or won by the 
armour and the sword that he wore within him and not without.” 




PHILADELPHIA 
THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 


1900 


7142o 


Librkiry Of Conctrees 

■‘Wt CUPIU KtCLi^ED 

NOV 6. 1900 

Copyright entry 

StCOND COPY. 

Delivered to 

OROtft DIVISION, 

N OV 19 19Qa_ 



Copyright, 1900, by The Trustees of 
The Presbyterian Board of Publication and 
Sabbath-School Work. 


V 

I 




THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


CHAPTER I 

1 EXPECT that composition decided your 
Uncle Amos,” said Mrs. Doubleday, as 
she took a letter from her daughter 
Hannah’s hand. 

Phineas had brought the letter from the 
post office. Hannah had espied something 
white in his hand while he was still only half- 
way up the hill, and she had run down to get 
it, for Phineas and the oxen were in their 
slowest mood. She had thought it might be 
the long-expected letter from Uncle Amos. 
They had begun to despair of that letter 
which Uncle Amos had promised to write 
when he had decided which one of the boys 
he meant to educate — Pitt, who was his 
brother Hiram Doubleday’s only son, or 
Heber, who was his favorite sister’s orphan 
boy. 


5 


6 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


Pitt, perched upon the v/ood box, tried to 
twist his long legs into a knot, as he always 
did when he was agitated, and Heber ac- 
tually turned pale about the mouth. Good, 
motherly Mrs. Doubleday looked uneasily 
from one to the other. Her conscientious 
determination to make no difference between 
her own boy and the orphan who had fallen 
to her charge had been so faithfully carried 
out that now her maternal heart throbs were 
almost as strong for one as for the other. 
There was scarcely any pleasure in the great 
opportunity for one, since it involved a dis- 
appointment for the other. She had made 
that remark about the composition to soften 
the blow to the one on whom she expected 
it to fall. It was quite likely that Uncle 
Amos would say bluntly, ‘Tt shall be Pitt, 
because Pitt is the smarter, as everybody 
knows.” She wished that she could have 
received the letter in private; yet, even then, 
it would scarcely have been possible to 
smooth over anything. They must all know 
every word that Uncle Amos had written; 
and he was not one to smooth things over. 
He freely expressed the opinion that the 
hard knocks of life were good for a boy. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


7 


They made a man of him if he was of the 
right stuff. Some one’s ears were very apt 
to burn whenever Uncle Amos sent a letter 
to the farm. 

“Open the bedroom door, mother, so’t I 
can hear!” This came from Father Double- 
day, who was recovering from rheumatic 
fever. He had seen Hannah run by the 
bedroom window with the letter in her hand. 
Hannah pulled nervously at her long braid 
and stroked old Priscilla the wrong way until 
the sparks flew. 

Phineas had hurried, actually hurried — an 
unheard-of thing for Phineas — when Hannah 
had cried out that the postmark was Port- 
land, and he now stood leaning in at the 
doorway, privileged by twenty years of serv- 
ice to know the household affairs. Mother 
Doubleday smoothed her apron and settled 
her collar and pin, as if she had company, 
before she opened the letter. 

“If he says Pitt, it will be only because 
of the composition,” she repeated, tremu- 
lously. “He thought a sight about that 
composition — ‘Our Relations with the Philip- 
pines’ !” 

Uncle Amos had been at Beaver Hollow 


8 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


when the school exhibition was held the 
summer before, and had been much struck 
by Pitt’s graduating efifort. “We mustn’t let 
him get the big head, but I tell you, Mi- 
randy, that it was great,’’ he had whispered 
in Pitt’s mother’s ear, rubbing his hands 
and chuckling. She had felt then that 
Heber’s fate was sealed — Heber who loved 
his books better than Pitt. That was why 
she had bought him a new red necktie when 
Pitt had to go without, and had almost 
made him ill with unlimited damson pre- 
serves. Such a position is so much more 
difficult when the other boy is not one’s 
own son ! 

Mrs. Doubleday took ofif her glasses and 
wiped them slowly and carefully, while the 
silence deepened and seemed to thrill with 
anxious heart beats. 

“ ‘My dear sister-in-law’ ” — 

Mrs. Doubleday read in a voice which she 
was obliged to make unnaturally loud and 
firm to keep it steady at all. 

“ To invest your money in a boy is about 
as risky as gambling, if it isn’t as unprin- 
cipled, and after sizing up those two boys, or 
trying to, as I did last summer, it has still 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 9 

been pretty hard for me to make up my mind 
which one I would send away to school and 
take the responsibility of giving a start in 
life. As you know, 1 haven’t much, and I 
earned it by hard work, so I have thought a 
good deal about spending it. It appears to 
stand to reason that the one that is of a 
literary turn will make the most of the ad- 
vantages of an education, and I expect, 
judging from that composition — essay I be- 
lieve they called it, but that seemed kind of 
high-flown to me when a boy isn’t but six- 
teen — that — that’ ” — 

Good Mrs. Doubleday’s voice faltered and 
broke. “That’s just what I told you ! 
Amos always was one that thought a great 
deal of literary gifts. He wrote a poem 
once, himself, that was printed in the paper!” 
she said, looking, not at Pitt growing 
radiant upon the wood box, but at Heber 
turning his strained face away toward the 
darkening window. “It isn’t because one 
of you is a mite better or smarter than the 
other; it’s only because Pitt wrote that com- 
position.” 

“That wasn’t much,” stammered Pitt, shame- 
facedly; and his eyes wandered round the 


o 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


group of listeners. Afterwards Hannah re- 
membered his look and wondered if there 
had not been a trace of anxiety behind the 
modesty. 

“ ‘I suspect that Pitt would better be the 
one/ ” Mrs. Doubleday went on reading in a 
husky voice, while the letter shook in her 
hand like a leaf in the wind. “ ‘If I could 
send them both to school and to college, I 
would, for I think Heber may have doctor- 
ing in him, like his father and his grand- 
father. His grandfather was considerable of 
a man, but his father died too young to 
show whether there was anything in him or 
not.’ ” 

“Perhaps it’s the doctor in him that makes 
Heber find out all about herbs and things; 
and he made the medicine that cured 
Comet!” cried Hannah, as if struck by a 
sudden idea. 

“Be a vet, Heber,” said Pitt, with a care- 
less air. “Get up a horse medicine and 
make so much money by it that I shall be 
able to borrow of you when I get into col- 
lege scrapes.” 

Hannah twirled her tow-colored braid and 
flashed an angry glance upon him. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I I 

“Some people think of nothing but them- 
selves/’ she said sharply. 

“That’s all you know,” retorted Pitt. 
“Horse doctoring is getting to be thought a 
fine profession, anyhow,” he added. But he 
stammered and seemed embarrassed under 
Hannah’s clear, wide-open eyes. Hannah’s 
eyes were almost too wide-open. Pitt de- 
clared that she strained her hair back so 
tightly that she could not shut them. 

“Stop, children, and listen to what Uncle 
Amos says !” said Mrs. Doubleday, impera- 
tively. 

“ Tf there is anything in Heber, it will 
come out, somehow, even if he hasn’t much 
of a chance; that’s my belief; and, anyhow, 
I don’t suppose that either of the young 
ones, even Hannah, has learned all that 
there is to be learned in Beaver Hollow.’ ” 

“Even Hannah!” echoed that young female, 
indignantly. For she was fifteen and felt 
every inch of it. While Beaver Hollow wits 
lacked the sharpening of the city, there was, 
unaccountably, an early maturing of charac- 
ter. “There is more to be learned in 
Beaver Hollow than anyone would think,” 
she added, dispassionately. With the ready 


12 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


tact that is sometimes to be found, oddly 
enough, in even fifteen-year-old femininity, 
she instantly effaced herself that Heber 
might not remain uncomforted. “If I had 
it in me to be a great doctor, I think I 
could get to be one in Beaver Hollow.” 

Heber regarded her absently. He was 
not even listening to this bit of attempted 
consolation. He stole a swift glance at 
Pitt — a furtive, studying glance. 

Pitt dropped his eyes. “It’s ridiculous 
about that old essay. That didn’t amount 

to anything,” he said, his voice gruff with 
some emotion. “Why, Heber could do forty 
times as well as that if he should happen 
to hit upon the right subject, as I did. 
Everybody knows there’s more in old Heber 
than there is in me.” 

“I hope you will do well, Pitt,” said his 

mother, earnestly. “There’s a great deal of 
boy in you.” 

“For the land’s sake! did you expect there 
wouldn’t be?” called an irate voice from the 
bedroom. 

Hiram Doubleday had quick ears, and 
every comment upon the letter that he had 

missed he had demanded to have repeated 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


13 


to him at once. But until now he had him- 
self said nothing. Hiram was a man of a 
reticent habit. But his son Pitt was the 
very pulse of his heart. All the success in 
life that he had missed he yearned that Pitt 
should have. He confided to everyone the 
opinion that the Lord had given Pitt a 
better understanding than he had given his 
father, and that he hoped the boy would 
have a chance to make something of his 
life. He liked Heber, too, but he thought 
his wife was a little over-conscientious in 
the way she managed. It was of no use to 
try to pretend, he said, that your own flesh 
and blood wasn’t nearer to you than any- 
thing else. 

“I ain’t saying he’s a bad boy,” said Pitt’s 
mother, quickly. “But going away from 
home so tries a boy! It brings out what 
there is in him. Sometimes them that 
brought him up don’t know just what that 
is.” Her voice was so charged with feel- 
ing that it brought a silence. The fire 
crackled on the hearth — the October evening 
was chilly — and the cat purred under Han- 
nah’s stroking hand, stroking the right way, 
now, but absently. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


Phineas, in the doorway, began to shuffle 
uneasily upon his feet. “Whether he’s away 
or to home a boy’s apt to be up to more’n 
anybody knows of,” he muttered. Heber 
looked at him, a straight, startled gaze which 
Hannah intercepted wonderingly. 

“I do hope you’ll do well, Pitt, dear,” re- 
peated his mother; and she rose and laid 
her hand upon the boy’s head. 

Pitt rose from the wood box with a flush 
on his face and a little frown between his 
brows. 

“I should think that I was going to state 
prison instead of to have a little chance for 
myself at last!” He said this almost fiercely, 
as if he had been eating his heart out with 
ambition, while they all thought that Pitt 
was one to take life easily and happily 
enough in Beaver Hollow. 

There came a call from the bedroom, and 
Pitt went hurriedly in to his father and shut 
the door behind him with a little force. 

“Pm afraid we haven’t been quite sym- 
pathetic enough to the dear boy,” Mother 
Doubleday said doubtfully. “I only wanted 
to warn him of temptations.” 

“Temptations ! land ! you ain’t goin’ to get 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I 5 

away from them if you crawl under a hay- 
mow!” said Phineas, sententiously. “I don’t 
calculate that Pitt will run agin any worse, 
ones at Concaster than he has run agin 
a’ready at Beaver Hollow !” 

Phineas was given to mumbled mono- 
logues; no one paid much attention to them, 
and Mrs. Doubleday had turned toward the 
bedroom with remorseful mother yearnings. 

Heber who had longed for a chance, as 
everyone knew, crossed the room quickly to 
Phineas, and they went out together. 
Comet, the colt that Heber had cured, was 
not yet quite steady on his legs, and Heber 
went out to the barn to attend to him. 
Phineas had the pails on his arm for his 
belated milking. As he hung the lantern 
on the hook by Comet’s stall he caught 
Heber’s curious glance. 

'‘Temptations! they’re as thick as huckle- 
berries anywhere for a boy that hain’t got 
bed-rock principles,” he said. 

Heber gave him another curious glance, 
then turned without a word and went into 
Comet’s stall. Phineas was milking when he 
emerged from the stall a few minutes later. 
The musical flow of the milk into the tin 


l6 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

pail ceased suddenly, and Phineas turned 
toward Heber and repeated slowly, ‘‘Bed- 
rock principles ! That’s what a boy has got 
to have whether he stays to home or goes 
away to school.” 

“Yon may as well tell me what yon 
mean,” said Heber, and his breath came 
heavily. 

Phineas turned the milking stool and set 
his hat firmly back upon his head. “A fel- 
low down East Ephesus way — Alf Gates, the 
tin peddler’s son — told me something — some- 
thing about Pitt. ’Twas something that 
would change things round considerable if 
’twas known. I set by this family. I don’t 
want to see ’em have trouble. But to see 
tiling^ got by cheating comes hard to any 
straightfor’ard. God-fearing man. Pve always 
had my own idea about which one ought to 
have the chance.” 

“Cheating?” faltered Heber, interrogatively. 

“ ’Twas something in a paper, a Corinna 
paper, that Alf Gates, down to East Ephesus, 
had sent to him. Pve seen it with my own 
eyes, in black and white — that composition 
that Pitt pretended he wrote himself!” 

Heber drew nearer. “1 know it,” he said. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I7 

quietly, although his voice shook. “ I 
thought that perhaps no one else in Beaver 
Hollow would find it out. The paper was 
wrapped round my shoes that I had mended 
down at East Ephesus.’ 

“Then you’ve got it yourself! You can 
prove it !” cried Phineas, eagerly. 

“No, I burned it. I couldn’t bear to see 
it and I couldn’t hide it anywhere and feel 
sure that it wouldn’t be found. Now that 
you know it, and others too, we must think 
what it will be best to do — best for Pitt 
and — and the others.” Heber’s face was 
white and he spoke hoarsely. It was plain 
that he was holding himself with a strong 
hand. The man in him stood out so 
strongly that his boyish looks seemed sud- 
denly incongruous and unfitting. Even 
Phineas felt this vaguely as he went on : — 

“Land! It’s easy enough. You just get 
a copy of that paper and send it to your 
Uncle Amos. Then you’ll be the one to 
go to the Concaster school; and you’re the 
deserving one and the one that will profit 
by it. It’s the Lord’s providence that Pitt 
has got found out — as much for his sake as 
anybody’s. He can’t be stopped too soon 
in them kind of doings !” 


l8 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

“Oh, not that ! I don’t want Pitt found 
out in that way! It wouldn’t be good for 
him, I know him so well !” cried Heber, 
anxiously. “It takes so little to turn him 
one way or the other ! Don’t you see that it 
would kill his father and mother? They’re 
so upright! I don’t believe there ever was 
a Doubleday that wasn’t as honest as day- 
light — before.” Heber’s voice dropped to a 
horrified whisper on the last word. “And 
you know how good Aunt Miranda is, every 
way. She has been determined not to make 
any difference between Pitt and me. I began 
to understand it when I was a little bit of a 
shaver; though I haven’t realized until lately 
how good she was to feel so. I knew that 
if the chance came to me instead of to Pitt 
she would never begrudge it to me, but 
would do everything to help me about it 
that she would have done for him. Yet, 
he’s the very apple of her eye, and it isn’t in 
human nature that she shouldn’t be glad that 
he is the one to have the chance. Do you 
suppose, after all she has done for me, that 
I am going to be the one to let her know 
that Pitt got the chance by a fraud?” The 
boy’s voice grew shrill and came near to 
breaking — he was but a boy, after all. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


19 


“That ain’t the p’int of view that I should 
naturally take,” said Phineas, slowly clasping 
his knee and swinging his leg to facilitate 
thought. “I go by the theory that it’s good 
for the wrongdoer to get found out, especially 
when he has done another fellow out of a 
chance by cheating — a chance that he could 
have got along without better than the other 
fellow, I calc’late” — he paused to survey 
Heber in his slow, critical way — “for every- 
thing comes easy to Pitt.” 

“Yes, that’s true; everything comes easy to 
Pitt,” echoed Heber, reflectively. 

“He’s one of those easy, happy-go-lucky 
fellows,” continued Phineas, “that everybody 
likes, and I can’t say but that so far as Fve 
seen he’s always appeared to be honest; but 
there seems to be a worm in the bud.” 
Phineas set his feet upon the floor, his elbows 
upon his knees, and his chin, dejectedly, upon 
his palms. “Pve seen a worm in the bud the 
ruin of a sight of blows in my time.” 

“He has always seemed honest, hasn’t he?” 
said Heber, eagerly. “I think he knew how 
Uncle Amos felt about — about literary ability, 
and he wanted so much to go to school ! 
No, that isn’t any real excuse for him, I 


20 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


know, but, Phineas, we mustn’t let this be 
known for his mother’s sake, anyhow!” 

Phineas swung his legs again. ‘'You’re a 
good boy, Hebe,” he said; “but when you’re 
older, I don’t know as you’ll be so ready to 
heave away your chances or so sure that it’s 
good for a wrongdoer to be shielded. But 
for his mother’s sake” — 

For the space of several minutes there was 
such a silence in the barn that one could hear 
the twittering of the swallows in the eaves 
and old Buttercup chewing her cud. For his 
mother’s sake ! Even Phineas could under- 
stand that, although he but vaguely realized 
how great was the struggle of the young, 
strong soul. 

“If young Alf Gates hasn’t told anybody, 
I know how to manage him,” said Heber, 
earnestly. 

“They haven’t been up this way lately, 
neither he nor his father. It was when I 
was down to East Ephesus getting the 
thresher mended that I heard of it,” said 
Phineas, reflectively. “I don’t suppose any- 
body has got hold of it.” 

“Then don’t tell a soul, Phineas! I know it 
will be better for Pitt!” He turned away 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


21 


suddenly with a gasp and a boyish sob. 

“Don’t you see, Phin, that it’s because they 
have been everything to me here, and I’m so 
envious of Pitt, that I’m afraid of wronging 
him?” 

Heber was gone. Comet turned his head 
and neighed after him, but he did not return. 

Phineas tiptoed out to the barn door, as if 
the barn were full of listeners. His coat 
hung on a nail beside the door. “I’ve got 
that paper in my pocket,” he murmured; 
“and I ain’t even obleeged to make up my 
own mind what I shall do with it, yet!” 

He thrust his hand into an inside pocket of 
the coat and drew it out empty — the paper 
was gone. “When Pitt went to my coat 
pocket after the nails” — he said to himself — 
“that’s where that paper has gone!” 


CHAPTER II 


I T had been decided to “kill two birds 
with one stone,” a proceeding which 
always appealed to the good, thrifty 
Beaver Hollow heart. Phineas was to take 
advantage of the fine market for the farm 
produce which Concaster afforded and carry 
Pitt to Grimshaw Academy in the farm 
wagon along with the poultry and pumpkins. 

East Ephesus, only six miles from Beaver 
Hollow, was the usual market, but that was 
only a small town, while Concaster was a city. 
To save Pitt’s car fare and get city prices for 
a load of produce was a stroke of business. 
So Phineas thought, and Mr. Doubleday, who 
was now convalescent, made laborious calcu- 
lations on paper with his one good arm, to be 
sure that it would pay, with the expense of 
hiring Abner Orcutt’s grays thrown in, for 
there were no horses on the Doubleday farm 
that were equal to the journey. 

Pleber and Hannah were to go, too. That 
part of the plan had originated with Mother 
22 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 23 

Doubleclay and had involved much argument 
and consultation. Concaster was only eighteen 
miles from Beaver Hollow, but neither Hannah 
nor Heber had ever been there. Pitt had 
once had the great good fortune to go with 
Abner Orcutt to buy a mowing machine. He 
had remembered ever since the wonders he 
had seen in spite of the fact that there had 
been a drawback to his happiness — a literal 
as well as figurative drawback, for Mrs. 
Abner Orcutt, who was of the party, had tied 
a string to him. He was but eight, and she 
had an anxious mind and feared she might 
lose him on the busy Concaster streets. 
Whenever he had wandered a few paces from 
her toward some enticing sight there had 
come a jerk on the string, a jerk that had 
frequently upset his small person. 

Now Pitt felt that he was going to Con- 
caster with no string to jerk him back from 
its delights and his heart thrilled high with 
happiness. The primitive Beaver Hollow 
School, where if you didn’t like the master 
you put him out, that is, if you were a big 
boy, had given Pitt no idea whatever of the 
discipline of a large school like Grimshaw 
Academy. He was likely to find that there 


24 Till-: r.OY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

were other bonds in Concaster when one had 
outgrown Mrs. Abner Orcutt’s string. 

They were obliged to get up at two 
o’clock in the morning, and that in itself was 
a joyous excitement. Hannah had been sure 
that she should not sleep at all, but one of 
the great pumpkins that they were to carry 
had turned into a chariot drawn by white 
mice, and she was driving in it through the 
Concaster streets when Phineas’s knock 
sounded upon her door. 

Pitt was already up and downstairs in his 
first brand new suit of clothes. It was a 
wonder to see him, he looked so manly ! So 
thought his mother and Hannah. So thought 
Pitt himself, and wondered that he had been 
able to endure so long the wearing of his 
father’s and Uncle Amos’s made-over clothes. 
He felt, for the first time, as if he really 
were Pitt Doubleday, a “smart” boy — all 
Beaver PTollow said so! — ready to show the 
world what he could do in it, and, inciden- 
tally, to make Beaver Hollow famous. He 
might have expected to perform that kindly 
office for Grimshaw Academy also if it had 
not been already famous, having names on 
its yellowed old records that were known all 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 25 

over the land, some, indeed, in other lands. 
Pitt meant to see his name set before the 
public as an honored son of Grimshaw before 
many years. It is still in the little Beaver 
Hollows of the country that ambition grows 
large. Pitt knew, too, just how he meant 
to do it, in which he had a great advantage 
over most sixteen-year-old boys. 

Mother Doubleday had a warm breakfast 
ready, and the great kitchen was cheerful 
with the unwonted light and bustle at that 
queer time of the morning. The kettle sang 
its cheeriest song; Priscilla, surprised and 
sociable, purred her loudest, and lazy old 
Ponto grew so frisky and noisy that he had 
to be put out. Mother Doubleday had not 
slept; she was half joyous and half tearful. 
Father Doubleday was proud, but full of 
prudent counsels. Inadequate himself to life 
as it is lived on a rocky, sterile Beaver Hollow 
farm, he felt hope spring again in his heart 
at a different outlook for Pitt. 

“The Lord’s providence has given you a 
chance, Pitt. It’s for you to make the most 
of. it,” he said, tremulously. 

Heber was solemn; but then, as Hannah 
reflected, he always was solemn. “You look 


26 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


just like Abel Goodhue — just as solemn as if 
you were going to be a minister!” she said 
to him. She felt as if pleasantries would 
relieve the strained situation. She was vaguely 
conscious of a strain beneath the surface 
which was greater than naturally belonged 
to the occasion. It was caused, probably, by 
the keenness of Heber’s disappointment, she 
thought, and the sympathy for him which it 
aroused. 

Heber scowled at her, half-absently. Abel 
Goodhue was their old minister’s son. *He 
was preparing for the ministry, but it was 
necessary for him to work his way, and he 
was now a tutor at Grimshaw, where Pitt 
was going. It was, in fact, the chief reason 
why Pitt was going there — that Abel Good- 
hue would exercise a watchful care over him. 

No one could eat Mother Doubleday’s nice 
breakfast. Abner Orcutt’s grays stamped 
impatiently at the door, and Phineas, aston- 
ishingly alert, blew the dinner horn as a 
signal for departure. 

“Be good and say your prayers!” said 
Mother Doubleday, huskily, with her arms 
round Pitt’s neck. 

“That’s all that matters, after all,” said 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 2/ 

Father Doubleclay, stroking his son’s head, 
tenderly. And he was quite sincere, for in 
the crises of life, especially the partings, am- 
bition dwindles always to a speck. High 
emotion is a lens which changes all pro- 
portions. 

Pitt swallowed a lump in his throat and 
murmured in an embarrassed way that the 
East Ephesus tailor didn’t fit a fellow round 
the neck as well as old Miss Simpkins did. 
He jumped into the wagon and sat astride 
the mammoth pumpkin that had taken a 
prize at the county fair, leaving the front 
seat beside Phineas to Hannah and Heber. 
Then seizing the dinner horn, which Phineas 
had thrown aside, he blew a lusty blast 
upon it as the grays went prancing down the 
lane. 

The October night was frosty. (Uncle 
Amos had not made up his mind before the 
term opened at Grimshaw.) The stars, in a 
high, clear sky, blinked in a friendly fashion, 
as though they had come out on purpose to 
assist at this start in life and were just as 
much interested in it as if it were the first 
they had ever seen; and a great round moon 
went with the travelers like a comrade, down 


28 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

the lane and alon^: the highway. When they 
reached the village, and the others would 
not let Pitt blow the horn to wake the 
people as they went along, he whistled rol- 
licking airs. But there was a queer little 
quaver in his voice, and they all knew that 
Pitt was feigning gayety to hide the home- 
sickness of his heart. Heber and Phineas 
wondered if it were not to stifle the pangs 
of conscience as well. Then Phineas sang an 
old, old song, “Roll on, silver moon, guide 
the traveler on his way.’’ Phineas was no 
longer young; he was nearly fifty, and, as he 
said, regretfully, “getting to be an old bach.” 
There was a buxom matron in Beaver village, 
of whom he was in the habit of saying that 
she might have been Mrs. Phineas Lamb, if 
he had been one to do his courting up spry. 
But when he had paid his addresses to her 
for fifteen years, and felt himself to be grad- 
ually coming to the point, she surprised him 
by marrying some one else ! 

At Jericho Four Corners, where they 
stopped at the tavern for the horses to feed, 
Phineas and Pitt were for a moment alone, 
and the slow-coming gray dawn had merged 
at last into clear daylight. Phineas had 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 29 

waited, recalling the old saying that it takes 
daylight to catch a rogue. 

Now he felt casually in his coat pockets as 
he and Pitt stood beside the horses’ heads 
just outside the tavern stables. 

“I’ve lost a newspaper out of iny pocket. 
Somebody must have taken it out,” he said, 
with his eyes on Pitt’s face. 

Pitt stooped to examine the shoe on one 
of the off gray’s forelegs and did not answer. 

“Appears singular that anybody should go 
to my pocket and take out a paper,” con- 
tinued Phineas, tentatively. 

“Anything particular in it?” asked Pitt, 
carelessly. 

“Something that I wouldn’t have lost for 
considerable,” returned Phineas; and now 
Pitt looked up and their eyes met. 

Pitt flushed angrily. His lip curled as he 
walked away. He turned back, however, 
the next moment with an easy laugh. 

“See here, Phin, if I have a secret that 
I want to keep I don’t know that it’s any 
affair of yours !” he said. “I know what 
I’m up to, and if you give me away you’ll 
only be sorry for it !” 

“A boy with a God-fearing ancestry like 
you !” gasped Phineas. 


30 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


“You don’t understand and you’ll make 
more mischief than can ever be undone if 
you don’t keep still!” said Pitt in a whis- 
per, fiercely, for Heber and Hannah were 
coming within hearing. When they set out 
again there was no more whistling for Pitt. 
He was cross when Hannah rallied him upon 
his homesickness. 

They had all been silent for some time 
when the wagon rattled into the Concaster 
streets. It was an old wagon and some- 
what dilapidated and it rattled a great deal. 
Phineas, . determined to have a full and 
profitable load, had packed it without regard 
to appearances. Boxes of squashes extended 
from the rear and above them dangled a 
row of plucked fowls. Under the front seat 
and piled up before it, so that it was a 
feat of agility to mount to it, were great 
yellow pumpkins. 

“Everybody stares at us 1” said Hannah, 
with feminine sensitiveness, as they drove 
through the streets of the little city. 

“It isn’t likely that they see such a load 
as this every day in the year,” said Phineas, 
proudly. 

But Hannah had seen smiles on several 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 3 I 

faces and was not happy. She was thankful, 
anyway, she said to herself, that she had on 
her best dress, but she grew uneasy again 
as she remembered her sunbonnet. 

They drove directly to the academy to 
deliver Pitt and his trunk. Phineas said 
that they were belated; it was after eight 
o’clock, and he should have been at the 
market by seven, and the trunk was in the 
way on the load. 

PFannah thought that Pitt might prefer to 
drive to the academy after the produce was 
sold, but he did not seem to care in the 
least how much people stared. He just 
stared in return with an independent air 
and began to whistle again carelessly. 

The academy buildings were large and 
imposing, and stood in delightfully spacious 
grounds. It was evidently a recreation hour 
and a ball game had been going on. Some 
boys were hurrying about the grounds with 
bats in their hands, others with books. 
They did not look in the least like Beaver 
Hollow boys. 

That was Hannah’s first impression, and 
she at once .said so. Pitt and Heber felt 
this only vaguely, and did not define it to 


32 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


themselves. Pitt didn’t care whether they 
were like Beaver Hollow boys or not. 

“Piimpkinville has come to town!” shouted 
a boy, and Hannah, who w^as last to get 
out of the wagon, flushed to the roots of 
her tow-colored hair. She knew that red 
rims had appeared about her eyes, provok- 
ingly, but she resolutely restrained the 
smarting tears. Heber had alighted, and 
was holding the grays while she got out. 
Hannah thought she had never known in 
Beaver Hollow how slouchy Heber looked 
without his coat. He had taken it off to 
help Phineas with the trunk. 

There came a derisive shout from a group 
of boys in the background. A stout boy in 
a sweater inquired the price of turkeys and 
whether Thanksgiving were not ahead of 
time. Sallies of cheap wit assailed them 
from every corner of the grounds. 

“Oh, Pitt, come home! come home!” ciied 
Hannah, chokingly. 

“What for? You don’t suppose I care! 
Ill show them!” said Pitt, stoutly, as he 
proceeded toward the gate carrying his trunk 
by one end while Phineas carried it by the 
other. It was Grandfather Doubleday’s old 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


33 


hide-covered, brass-nailed trunk, and it was 
heavy. 

The steward, a little gray-haired old man, 
came hurriedly to meet them. 

“Is — is it the new boy’s trunk?” he asked. 
“And are — are you the new boy, sir? the 
boy from Beaver Hollow?” 

He treated Pitt so respectfully that Han- 
nah’s spirits came up with a bound. Of 
course, it didn’t matter about those jeerers! 
They were only boys. Even if you do live 
in Beaver Hollow, you know what boys are! 
And here was Abel Goodhue ! He could 
not be ashamed of them, for he had been a 
Beaver Hollow boy himself. 

Abel came out to the wagon and spoke 
to them all. He had always liked Heber. 
The winter when he had taught the Beaver 
Hollow school he had taught Heber Latin 
out of school hours. Pitt had begun to 
study it with Heber, but he gave it up. He 
said Abel Goodhue was too slow for him. 

Abel was tall and very light of complex- 
ion and ungainly of figure. It seemed un- 
certain whether his stoop were sickly or 
only scholarly. He had suffered from a 
nervous disease in childhood and had been 
3 


34 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


hampered in his career by ill health. He 
had an awkward gait and a nervous, abrupt 
manner. He did not impress one as pos- 
sessed of strong individuality, but he was 
generally liked. The Beaver Hollow boys 
all liked him or they would not have 
allowed him to teach the winter school. 
Usually only a man of very strong physique 
could teach the Beaver Hollow winter 
school. 

It was so good to see him in this strange, 
unfriendly place ! It was like meeting a 
home face in a foreign land. Even the 
boys felt that, and Pitt immediately dis- 
carded the somewhat swaggering air which 
he had assumed to impress those sneering 
fellows. 

Abel wasn’t ashamed of them apparently. 
He offered to show them about the build- 
ings and grounds, as the bell for recitations 
had not yet rung. They declined, Hannah 
promptly, Heber slowly and wistfully. Heber 
seemed to be almost unconscious of the 
jeering boys. There was not a scornful 
sound to be heard now. One boy had 
gone out to the wagon and was talking 
quite seriously and respectfully with Phineas. 
Hannah saw Phineas give the boy an apple. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 35 

Presently Phineas was throwing apples 
over the fence and there was a scrambling 
among the boys. There was but one barrel 
and he must have thrown half of it. 

“I calculated Pd let ’em sce’t we had some- 
thing that couldn’t be beat up to Beaver 
Hollow,” he explained somewhat shame- 
facedly when Hannah and Heber returned 
to the wagon. “Mebbe ’twill make Pitt 
kind of pop’lar among the boys.” 

Phineas was astonished at, and could but 
admire, the manner in which Pitt carried 
himself. He boasted at home that a Beaver 
Hollow boy didn’t “dowse his peak to 
nobody.” 

They had been introduced to the head 
master and Pitt had not been abashed. 
Hannah had blushed terribly and wished 
that she had not worn her sunbonnet, at the 
same time remembering that she toed in. 
Heber had been pale, and his voice had 
shaken when he answered the head master, 
who said he hoped that he might come there, 
too, for he had heard from Mr. Goodhue 
that he was a fine scholar. But Heber 
might have behaved like that because he 
longed so much to stay. Hannah realized 


36 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

that with a pang of sympathy. Queer 
enough it was that anybody could wish to 
stay with those horrid boys! It seemed to 
Hannah that Pitt was much better adapted 
to hold his own among them than • Heber. 
But it was evident that Heber longed for 
the opportunity to learn, and was thinking 
but little about the boys. 

Hark ! they were cheering as Phineas 
turned the grays and the great wagon clat- 
tered clumsily away. 

“Three cheers for Beaver Hollow!” What 
a noise they made. Hannah had thought be- 
fore that Beaver Hollow boys could shout. 

Heber took off his broad-brimmed straw 
hat and bowed to them with quite an air of 
distinction. You might not have thought, 
to look at him, that he could do it like 
that, but he did, and Hannah was proud. 
She made two little furtive dabs at her eyes 
with her handkerchief. 

“Three cheers for Beaver Hollow!” shouted 
the boys again, and the cheers were given 
with a Avill. 

“I suppose it was only the pippins, but I 
feel easier about Pitt,” said Hannah. But 
Phineas and Heber looked doubtfully at 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


37 


each other. They did not feel at all easy 
about Pitt, in spite of his assured manner. 

“That chance ought to have been yours,” 
said Phineas aside to Heber. “But we shall 
see what we shall see !” • 


CHAPTER III 


H annah had a good time in the gay 
and bustling market. There no one 
sneered at the big farm wagon and 
its load, and she was proud when people 
crowded round to see the huge pumpkins 
and squashes. The land might not be as 
fertile as it ought to be, on the Beaver 
Hollow farm, but it could be made to raise 
pumpkins and squashes. 

Phineas was happy in quick sales and good 
profits; but Heber was not, as Hannah de- 
clared, one bit like himself. “Hannah, do 
you know exactly what a guy is?” he asked 
in a dispassionate tone, from the back of the 
wagon where he was sitting astride an empty 
barrel, after they had set out for home. 

“Why?” asked Hannah, without committing 
herself. She had suddenly become sensitive 
about Beaver Hollow limitations since she 
had heard the sneers of those boys, and was 
not ready to admit that there was anything 
she didn’t know. 

38 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 39 

“I heard one of those fellows at the 
academy say that I looked like a Pumpkin- 
ville guy. I thought I would like to know 
just what a guy is/’ said Heber, with the 
impartial air of a seeker for information, 

“It’s something stupid and horrid, I think,” 
said Hannah. “Not like you! not the least 
bit like you! Oh, I hate to leave Pitt with 
those dreadful boys ! But, Heber, I know 
it was all your clothes, and they don’t 
understand. In Beaver Hollow we don’t 
judge people by their clothes!” 

”I thought perhaps a guy was a slow 
fellow,” said Heber, rellectively. “I am that. 
I can’t make up my mind about things. I 
think and think, and never feel sure.” 
Hannah turned and looked at him wonder- 
ingly. 

“Things are queer,” she said. She thought 
he was thinking how strange it was that the 
opportunity had come to Pitt instead of to 
him, and she could think of nothing con- 
soling to say. She had begun to fear that 
Heber was taking it harder than they had 
thought. 

They were still driving through the Con- 
caster streets, and they just then passed a 


40 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


church into which a solitary man was going, 
with a reverent air. A placard on the door 
announced that the church was “open at all 
hours for private worship.” 

“That’s kind of queer; I never saw that 
except on Roman Catholic churches,” re- 
marked Phineas, who had once been on a 
sea voyage to foreign ports and liked to show 
his superior knowledge of the world. Heber 
was scarcely aware that he saw the notice 
on the church or heard what Phineas said, 
but in the curious way in which a slight 
impression sometimes returns, that trifling 
incident returned to his memory the next 
day. 

He was still trying to make up his mind 
about things, although he had started to 
walk down to East Ephesus to see young 
Alf Gates, who knew about the paper which 
contained the essay that Pitt had read as 
his own on exhibition day. He took with 
him his greatest treasure — a valuable gun 
that had been his father’s. Young Alf 
Gates was a mighty hunter; he could prob- 
ably be bribed to silence by means of that 
gun. 

Heber did not shrink from the sacrifice, 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


41 


but his straightforward soul revolted at the 
deed. His was one of those grateful souls, 
not too common. If a blow menaced those 
who had made him as their own, and who, 
having little, had shared it freely with him, 
was it not his place to avert the blow at 
any cost? A disgrace, too! — the hardest 
blow for their sturdy honesty and indepen- 
dence to bear. 

Pitt took it lightly; he probably regarded 
it only as a joke, a smart, boyish trick; but 
it would not be so regarded at Beaver Hol- 
low, still less at Grimshaw Academy. Uncle 
Amos, to whom honesty was as the breath 
of his nostrils, would not so regard it. 
Pitt’s loss would be his, Heber’s, gain. On 
Pitt’s downfall he might rise. That was the 
most perplexing part of the problem. 

As he walked down through the village 
with his gun, he paused suddenly at the 
church door. He remembered the sign upon 
the Concaster church door. Might one 
find a clearer answer to prayer in a church? 
At least, the solitude and silence might help 
to clear his bewildered brain. Yet probably 
'the church door was locked. There was a 
primitive sense of safety and an absence of 


42 


THE BOY FROM BRAVER HOLLOW 


locks in Beaver village, but the church door 
could not he expected to he open on a 

week day. 

Yet it was. Heher turned the knob softly 
and the door yielded. The key was on the 
inside and he turned it as he entered the 

church. He walked up the aisle, up, up, to 
the foot of the tall, old-fashioned pulpit, 
obeying, perhaps, some childish fancy that 
the pulpit was nearer to God. Childish 

fancies are apt to throng us all in our sore 
need, and Heher was hut sixteen. He leaned 
his gun against the pulpit stairs and knelt 
beside the little communion table. 

On Sundays he usually sat out behind the 
stove with the other hoys, and not even 

Uncle Amos’s best suit, which had come 
down to him for Sunday wear, had always 
kept him wholly decorous through Parson 
Goodhue’s long sermons. For Heher was 
but a hoy. 

His prayers had usually been the formal 
ones that he had been taught to say, from 
“Now I lay me” to “Our Father which art 
in heaven.” Sometimes there had been 
moments of boyish trouble when a cry for 
help had struggled through the formal 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 43 

words. He began now, aloud, “Our Father,” 
and a tall figure arose, softly, in the pulpit 
and looked down upon the kneeling boy. 

Parson Goodhue, one of the best and 
truest of men, had his human weaknesses. 
There was one which he called in his fervent 
petitions “an ignoble fear of the face of 
clay.” He was timid and nervous in the 
pulpit, and he always rehearsed the delivery 
of his Sunday sermon. He had an entrance 
from the parsonage garden, at the rear of 
the church, and in the twenty years of his 
ministry at Beaver village his habit had 
never been discovered. No one had ever 
intruded upon him, and he had, years be- 
fore, ceased to make sure that the sexton 
had locked the church door. 

“Our Father which art in heaven,” prayed 
Heber, “show me the right thing to do, for 
Pitt — for Pitt and the others — especially 
for Pitt! Because I want to go to school 
myself! Thou, O God, only knowest how 
much I want it ! So I pray thee to show 
me why the wrong seems right and the right 
seems wrong and how I may do the right 
and honest thing without wronging Pitt ! 
The best way — show me the best way, O 
God, for Pitt !” 


44 


THE ROY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


The old minister had drawn back cau- 
tiously, but he arose again and looked down 
from the pulpit as the eager, tremulous 
accents filled the church. Heber felt him- 
self alone with God, and he did not choose 
his words. The old minister shrank as from 
a place too sacred for any intrusion; yet to 
warn the boy of his presence, now, would, 
he felt, be worse than to listen — especially 
as it was one of his boys. 

Parson Goodhue knew how sensitive the 
soul of a boy may be. He dealt with those 
in his charge with tenderest reverence. He 
Studied individuality and respected privacy. 
Outsiders wondered at the number of boys 
in the communion of the Beaver village 
church, while Parson Goodhue never seemed 
to use direct methods. 

Parson Goodhue folded his hands upon the 
great Bible on the pulpit and joined in 
Heber’s prayer. “Make Pitt do what is 
right and honest and yet don’t let Uncle 
Amos take the chance from him and give it 
to me! Thou, who knowest all things, O 
God, knowest that that is not what I mean ! 
Thou knowest how a boy is tempted when 
he wants a chance and everything seems 
against him. It is hard for a boy to learn 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 45 

much in Beaver Hollow, and perhaps Pitt 
felt that it was the only way. If what I 
am going to do about young Alf Gates and 
the gun is not right, I pray thee in some 
way to show me that it isn’t. For Christ’s 
sake. Amen.” 

Heber half rose, hesitated, and knelt again. 

“And if it can be done, O Lord, give me a 
chance without taking it away from Pitt.” 

The minister murmured “Amen,” and with 
his hands outstretched above the boy’s head 
he added, under his breath, the benediction, 
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” — In 
all the years of his ministry Parson Goodhue 
had never pronounced it more fervently. 

The gun rattled down beside the pulpit 
steps. The minister sank back, noiselessly, 
out of sight, as the boy arose. Heber had 
lingered to add, sotto voce, to his petition 
that he was slow, but, with characteristic 
honesty, that he might have learned to pray 
better than he had done. It was then that 
he had received, unconsciously, the old min- 
ister’s benediction. 

The door closed upon the boy and left 
the minister in perplexity of mind. He had 
understood only that Heber was in some 


46 THE BOV FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

difficulty with which Pitt was connected. 
He shrank from discovering facts that had 
not been intended for his ear. He was glad 
of the added clause to Heber's petition — 
“Give me a chance without taking it away 
from Pitt!” He feared, at first, that Heber 
had developed an exaggerated self-conscious- 
ness and a morbid self-sacrifice. That 
amended prayer rang true and human. 
Parson Goodhue wanted only a manly and 
wholesome religious spirit in his boys. After 
all, he could only do what Heber had done, 
kneel and pray, “God show me the right 
way!” In doing it, he quite forgot, for the 
first time, to rehearse his part in the Sunday 
service. 

There had never been a trace of vanity in 
this, nor any of “the ignoble fear of the face 
of clay,” of which he accused himself; only 
an impulse to rid himself of the nervous self- 
consciousness which interposed a barrier be- 
tween him and his hearers and hindered the 
fervent outpouring of his message. He arose 
from his knees and went away, forgetful for 
the moment that he had omitted his cus- 
tom of twenty years. But he had never felt 
freer or more imtrammeled before his people 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 47 

than he did the next Sunday. So one 
curious result of Heber’s obeying his sudden 
impulse to enter the church was Parson 
Goodhue’s discovery that he did not need to 
rehearse his sermon. He never did it 
again. 

Heber went on, hesitatingly, with his gun, 
toward East Ephesus and Alf Gates. He 
felt that his strong appeal for God’s direc- 
tion must bring an immediate response. Far 
wiser ones among us than the sixteen-year- 
olds have felt this expectancy, and been 
almost crushed when they found that God’s 
great, immutable laws go on, that his ways 
are not ours, that it is long, long, and 
sometimes then only in moments of rare 
insight, before one can clearly recognize the 
Guiding Hand. There was no burning bush 
for Heber; not even a still, small voice! 

The autumn sky lowered heavily, and, 
although his feet were not weary, they 
lagged. The uplifted mood in which his 
prayer had left him had its inevitable re- 
action, as he went heavily over the slow miles 
to Ephesus — a reaction which he, being so 
young, did not understand, even with wise 
Parson Goodhue for a religious teacher. 


48 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

Since one must be a sneak anyway, might 
not one as well be a sneak for one’s own 
advantage ? Since bribery and corruption 
were mean and dishonorable, why should he 
use them to shield Pitt? What did God 
mean by putting a fellow in a place where 
he could not tell what it was right to do, and 
then not helping him out of it? He said 
to himself that he was not called upon to 
do anything. Pie would let matters take 
their course. He even turned back once, 
resolved upon doing this. But then his 
affectionate heart took control and decided 
where his unripe judgment failed. He 
could not let trouble come upon the little 
home that had sheltered him with such gen- 
erous love and care. He could not let 
Mother Doubleday know that her boy was 
a sneak and a cheat. He could not, — so 
that settled the question. 

Young Alf Gates “loafed and invited his 
soul” upon a “teeter” in his back yard 
when Heber reached the house. Young 
Alf was a “stocky” boy, with an incon- 
gruously long nose which both eyes seemed 
to be trying to look at. The crossed eyes 
gave a sly expression to his face, as crossed 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 49 


eyes are apt to do. He alighted from the 
“teeter” eagerly when he saw Heber with 
the gun, thereby causing his small brother 
on the Other end to come down to the 
ground with a bounce and bruised knees. 

“I want to speak to you,” said Heber; 
and Alf conducted him out behind the wood 
pile. Alf had a business bump and he 
scented profit. Once in seclusion he be- 
strode the sawhorse and waited. 

Heber leaned against the fence holding his 
gun like a soldier, but with his eyes bent 
upon the ground. He was saying to himself 
that he ought to have thought just how to 
“tackle” Alf Gates. That difficulty was nov/ 
confronting him. Someone — he thought it 
was Pitt — had told him that Alf Gates was 
“as slippery as an eel.” 

“There’s been something printed in a paper 
about — about the Philippines,” he stam- 
mered; “and I want to get hold of the 
paper.” 

“Interested in the Philippines?” asked Alf, 
dryly. 

Heber came to the point at once — he 
knew how one had to catch eels, he said to 
himself — but it was in boy fashion. 

4 


50 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

“You see that gun?” he said. Alf nodded 
with an assumption of indifference, but with 
a gleam in the eyes which steadfastly sur- 
veyed his nose. 

“It’s a very fine gun. It’s worth a good 
deal of money. If you’ll tell me all that I 
want to know about a paper and agree to all 
that I want you to do” — 

“Kind of old-fashioned, isn’t it?” said Alf, 
examining the gun critically. 

“I want you to give me the paper and 
promise me on your word of honor not to 
say anything about it. I don’t think that 
you have said anything, because” — 

Heber hesitated to say “because I’m sure 
from what Phineas told me and from what I 
know of you that you mean to make some- 
thing out of your knowledge of a secret 
that other people have an interest in keep- 
ing.” 

“Pitt and I used to go to school together 
when I lived up Beaver Hollow way, and I 
don’t want to get him into any scrape,” said 
Alf, digging his heels meditatively into the 
ground. “But a fellow hadn’t ought to 
cheat, you know, and you hadn’t ought to 
help him. Seems as if I’d ought to have 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 5 I 

more’ll an old gun for doing such a thing 
as that. I don’t think anything of an old 
gun like that, anyhow. Gee Whittaker! 
wouldn’t there be a fuss if it was known 
that Pitt stole that composition right out of 
a newspaper! You’d think to hear folks 
talk about it that there wa’n’t never a com 
position wrote in Beaver Hollow school be- 
fore! Folks say ’twas that composition that 
made your Uncle Amos send him away to 
school instead of you. I don’t see what you 
want to hush it up for, anyhow. You’re a 
queer fellow !” Alf regarded Heber with 
genuine bewilderment in his shrewd, crossed 
eyes. “But then I always knew you were 
a queer fellow.” 

“I should want you to make me a solemn 
promise that no one shall ever know, through 
you, that Pitt has done anything that isn’t 
exactly square,” said Heber, huskily. “Of 
course. Pm not standing up for him. I 
don’t understand it at all. It wasn’t like 
Pitt !” he added with a sudden burst of feel- 
ing that came of his bitter revolt from using 
bribery to gain Alf Gates’s silence. 

“You can’t tell what a fellow will do to 
get the better of another fellow,” said Alf 


52 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

Gates, sagely. “And land ! that Corinna 
Courier don’t get round in these parts once 
in ten years! My cousin, Jo Gates, has got 
a store up there, and he sent us two copies 
with his advertisement in it. Dad was away 
and nobody saw the papers but me. I 
never said a word to anybody; honor bright, 
I never did I” 

“Phineas knew it,” said Heber. 

“Except where it was right in the family 1 
I thought Phineas ought to know it,” said 
Alf Gates, and his crossed eyes narrowed 
shrewdly. 

“Give me the papers and promise to say 
nothing about it, and I will give you the 
gun,” said Heber, with a sickening pang of 
shame. 

The deed grew worse with every moment 
and with every word that Alf Gates uttered. 

“It isn’t much of a gun, anyhow, and I 
ain’t one that ever helped a fellow to cheat. 
I don’t see what you’re driving at. Things 
don’t seem right, anyhow. But if you could 
say a dollar or two besides the gun, or 
even your muskrat trap” — 

Heber’s eyes flashed. He thrust the gun 
under his arm and started off. He said to 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 53 

himself that Alf Gates’s meanness had 
settled the whole miserable business ! There 
was nothing more to be done. Besides, 
how could one trust a fellow like that? 
The whole story would be common property, 
it was very likely, after Alf had got all that 
he could by keeping silence. 

'‘Wait a minute,” cried Alf, following him 
hastily. "The gun isn’t half enough, and 
you know it isn’t, for keeping such a secret 
as that. But I don’t want to hurt Pitt, 
anyhow. Land ! I don’t believe he’d ever 
durst to come back to Beaver Hollow, do 
you? And he’d most likely be expelled 
from school ! So I’ll get you the paper. 
There isn’t but one. Phineas has got the 
other one. True as you live, I gave it to 
him !” 

Heber thrust into his pocket the paper 
that Alf gave him, handed him the gun, and 
walked away without another word. At the 
frate he turned back. 

"You promise?” he said solemnly to Alf. 

"I promise — though it isn’t much of a 
gun,” returned Alf. 

At the end of the lane Heber, striding 
gloomily along, ran into the small brother. 


54 the boy from beaver hollow 

vvho had been jounced down upon the 
“teeter.” 

“Did you give Alf that gun?” he cried, 
eagerly. “Oh my, oh my ! was it for keep- 
ing a secret, same as your cousin Pitt gave 
him a silver watch? Gee Whittaker! don’t 
I wish I knew a secret 1” 

The blood rushed hotly to Heber’s face, 
his heart seemed to be beating in his ears. 
“I am a fool !” he said to himself, furiously. 
“Cheating and lies — all cheating and lies I 
And they are laughing in their sleeves at 
me for a simple-minded idiot 1” 

A little farther on he dropped down be- 
side the fence to try to think whether there 
was anything further that he could do with 
Alf Gates. Of course, he could not recover 
the gun. He must set that loss down to 
the score of experience, he said to himself, 
bitterly. He realized how he valued it, this 
one heirloom that he possessed, as he had 
quite forgotten in the sharp emergency of 
Pitt’s danger. Pitt, it seemed, had some- 
how received a warning and had taken care 
of his own affairs. 

Heber would have said that he was sure, 
before, of Pitt’s guilt, and yet this proof of 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 55 

it overwhelmed him. That silver watch had 
been Pitt’s grandfather’s; he had observed 
that it was missing from Pitt’s pocket when 
he went away, but had asked no questions, 
thinking that he had probably left it with 
his mother for safe keeping or because it 
was so large and old-fashioned that the 
Grimshaw boys might laugh at it. 

All his perplexities, his sharp struggles of 
conscience, had been for nothing, thought 
Heber. When he had prayed for guidance, 
the Lord must have “had him in derision,” 
he said to himself, bitterly. 

A shot rang out on the quiet air — a shot 
and a wild cry of distress. It came from 
the direction of Alf Gates’s wood pile. 

Heber ran back, his heart cold with fear. 
Alf lay prone behind the wood pile, as white 
as if he were dead. Heber surmised at 
once what had happened. Alf had loaded 
the gun with a tremenduous charge, and it 
had “kicked.” 


CHAPTER IV 


I ’M nominated for the Gridiron Club,” 
said Pitt, looking up suddenly from his 
Latin, in Abel Goodhue’s room. He 
had changed much in the seven weeks that 
he had spent at Grimshaw, an indefinable 
change which the tutor watched with curious 
interest. Pitt had said sometimes a little 
scornfully that Beaver Hollow was not 
all the world. He had fully realized the 
limitations of Beaver Hollow; the great 
thing that the academy had so far accom- 
plished for him was to make him begin to 
realize the limitations of Pitt Doubleday. 

When a boy reaches that point, perhaps 
his education may be said to have begun. 
To be the “smartest” boy in Beaver Hol- 
low, according to the Beaver Hollow stand- 
ards, to know that you have more ambition, 
a broader outlook on life, and a better sense 
of practical possibilities, than the other boys, 
is apt to be misleading. Your judgment 
has insensibly been formed on the Beaver 

56 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 57 

Hollow standatd. At Griiiishaw Academy 
you looked at yourself in a mental diminish- 
ing glass. You dwindled. 

That, at least, was Pitt’s experience. He 
wondered, even in his exciting whirl of ex- 
periences, how Heber would have stood the 
test. Heber was a fine scholar and ambi- 
tious, but he had not the same sense of prac- 
tical possibilities. He was very lofty in his 
aims — visionary, Pitt thought. He had not 
an eye to the main chance. Pitt doubted 
whether he ever would succeed, although he 
meant to help him. But he knew what he 
meant to do for Heber; he must work hard 
to accomplish it. He could push his way 
in the world as Heber couldn’t. He was 
not so clever as he thought he was; that 
Grimshaw had taught him. But he still felt 
sure that he could “push his way in the 
world.” 

Grimshaw had not been able to doubt his 
pluck. Work on a Beaver Hollow farm 
toughens the muscles more than any gymna- 
sium. Sturdy self-confidence, reinforced by 
those Beaver Hollow muscles, had speedily 
put an end to pleasantries concerning 
“Pumpkinville” and “pippins” ; at least to 


58 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

those not of the kind which Pitt received 
with careless good nature. 

He had confided to a certain extent in 
Abel Goodhue, and the tutor was helping 
him by coaching him out of hours. That 
work interfered with the athletics in which 
Pitt delighted, and he doubtfully weighed 
the balance between them. 

“It’s not only that a country fellow needs 
that sort of thing,” he explained to the 
tutor, “but Pve got to make those fellows 
respect me. Not so much for my own 
sake; I don’t really care, you know; I can 

easily attend to any fellow who is saucy. But 
because of something that I hope is going 
to happen after I have gone away. A fel- 
low might come here who couldn’t stand 
hard knocks, you know. It would be a 

good thing if I could pave the way for him; 

don’t you see?” 

Abel Goodhue did not see. Pitt was 
always on the brink of confidences which he 
never fully gave. The tutor knew that the 
uncle had been expected to send Heber to 
school, but had decided to send Pitt instead. 
Pitt had talked freely of his great good 
luck in getting there. The tutor’s own 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 59 


opinion was that Heber was rather slow. 
He thought it had been wise to choose Pitt 
instead. 

‘‘I wouldn’t try for popularity, if I were 
you,” said the tutor, when Pitt conveyed 
that information about the Gridiron Club. 

“A fellow doesn’t try for that, you know,” 
said Pitt, flushing a little; “it comes to 
him. At least if I have done anything 
with that in view it hasn’t been for myself. 
I don’t care anything about it.” 

“I know you don’t,” returned the tutor, 
looking at him with a wonder that had a 
trace of wistfulness in it. Abel longed to 
have the boys like him, and they never did. 
Ill health and a nervous awkwardness passed 
with them for a lack of manliness, the un- 
pardonable sin in a boy’s eyes. “I — I only 
meant,” he added, hesitatingly, “that to 
make that an aim might interfere with your 
progress. Then, too, the dues are a consid- 
eration. They’re rather large at the Grid- 
iron Club.” 

“I — T think I could find a way to manage 
that,” said Pitt, a little shamefacedly. “I’ve 
been rather fortunate in some ways.” He 
turned his head to escape Abel Goodhue’s 


6o THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

wondering eyes. Abel knew perfectly the 
slender resources of the Beaver Hollow 
farm, and that Uncle Amos was neither rich 
nor liberal. '‘I shahi’t let that hinder me if 
I want to join the club,” added Pitt, some- 
what grandly. “They’ve nominated me be- 
cause I saved the day for their ball team 
when Stanhope, the catcher, sprained his 
wrist. The boys brought me back to school 
on their shoulders, you know. We always 
could play ball at Beaver Hollow. Some of 
the snobs are going to try to keep me out. 
I should like to take the wind out of their 
sails ! I should feel as if it were for the 
honor of Beaver Hollow as well as for my 
own.” 

Pitt had heard that Phineas was saying at 
home that a Beaver Hollow boy never 
“dowsed his peak.” He meant they should 
hear, at home, that Grimshaw was finding 
that out. His eyes sparkled eagerly as he 
raised them to the tutor’s. “And, besides, 
there’s another reason why I want to do 
it,” added Pitt. He looked at Abel Good- 
hue as if he wished him to inquire what 
that reason was, but the tutor was not to 
be beguiled. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


6l 


The tutor had received a letter from his 
father, the old minister of Beaver Hollow, 
which was weighing heavily upon his sensi- 
tive mind. “I am glad,” wrote Parson 
Goodhue, ‘‘that you have the opportunity to 
watch over the welfare of one of our own 
Beaver Hollow boys. I will admit that I 
do not altogether understand Pitt Double- 
day. I have angled for him patiently, hope- 
fully, but I cannot feel that I have secured 
him. He is quick and clever and has much 
boyish self-esteem. But, to an unusual de- 
gree, for a boy of that nature, he can be 
influenced through his affections. The at- 
tachment between him and his cousin Heber 
has been a beautiful thing. I was some- 
what surprised to see that Pitt appeared 
unduly elated that the opportunity to go 
away to school was given to him, instead 
of to Heber, as was expected; but he is 
very ambitious of worldly success, and per- 
haps an unselfish spirit was scarcely to be 
expected of him in a matter like that. His 
is not so beautiful and spiritual a nature as 
Heber’s, but it has strength, and I hope for 
its development in all goodness. I am sure 
that you will be watchful, and if he should 


62 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


be in any special difficulty or danger” — 
good Parson Goodhue must have been think- 
ing; when he wrote that of what he had 
overheard in the church — “that you will do 
all in your power to help him. You know 
how my heart yearns over all our boys.” 

The Gridiron Club was the oldest and the 
most exclusive of the academy societies. Its 
members came usually from families of 
wealth or position; but by the inevitable 
democracy of a boys’ school, the cleverest 
boys were there also, wherever they came 
from — any who had gained honors in 
special lines, and almost always the idol of 
the hour. In a boys’ school the winning 
qualities of the idol of the hour are apt to 
be as indefinable as in the great world out- 
side. Pitt’s success in saving the day for the 
Gridiron Club’s nine, and the great enthu- 
siasm with which it had been received, caused 
Abel Goodhue to fear that Pitt might be- 
come the idol of the hour, and he foresaw 
great danger for him in that ‘‘bad eminence.” 

“I asked them to put off the election 
until next month,” pursued Pitt. “I’m 
not quite sure that it’s what I want. Be- 
sides, to tell the truth, I’m not in funds just 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 63 

now; I only expect to be. I suppose those 
fellows will say that I am afraid I sha’nh be 
elected. A fellow wouldn’t like that. It 
takes an unanimous vote, you know.” 

“I think they would probably elect you,” 
said Abel Goodhue, slowly. “The question 
is whether it would be worth your while.” 

Pitt returned to his Latin; he appreciated 
the tutor’s kind intentions and his help, but 
he said to himself that that club affair was 
a matter that a fellow must decide for him- 
self. 

After all, the tutor thought, there was 
little danger that anything would take Pitt’s 
mind from his studies. Only his strength 
of body and his need of outdoor exer- 
cise saved him from relapsing into the 
dullest of “digs”; in fact, Abel had felt called 
upon to warn him several times of the 
danger to body and mind that lay in that 
direction. He had seen wrecks at Grim- 
shaw in his time, mental and physical wrecks; 
they were very apt to be bright and poor 
country boys. 

It was language that Pitt was inclined to 
“dig” at. 

“I want to cultivate my gift of expres- 


64 the boy from beaver hollow 

sioii,” he explained to the tutor. “1 never 
shall need any more mathematics than will 
help me to keep account of my expenses on 
my cuffs. Or, no — I sha’n’t be able to use 
my cuffs for that! They will be needed for 
other things.” 

“You seem to have settled upon an occupa- 
tion in life,” the tutor said gravely. 

“Had it settled for me long ago — all cut 
and dried,” Pitt answered. But there was 
always a sudden halting place in his con- 
fidences. 

Abel Goodhue helped him to develop the 
gift of expression which he really had and 
to eschew the higher mathematics so far as 
possible — which was not very far, since the 
elective system did not prevail at Grimshaw. 
He was not afraid of directing the mental 
development of this Beaver Hollow boy, 
but he did not know how to angle for him 
morally and spiritually as his father did. 
That is, indeed, one of the higher gifts and 
graces bestowed only upon the prophets and 
seers. 

Pitt stayed at school to “dig” through 
the Thanksgiving vacation. He would save 
the money that the trip would cost, also, he 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 65 


said. Abel Goodhue, although it was a 
sacrifice, remained too. There were about a 
dozen other boys who remained, and they 
happened to be an unfortunate assortment 
of the more reckless and what Pitt called 
the “snobs.” Two of them had only been 
restrained from Pumpkinville pleasantries 
by the Beaver Hollow muscle. 

“I hate it, you know,” Pitt had ex- 
plained, when the tutor came upon him 
struggling with needle and thread in the 
effort to mend his jacket torn in the affray. 
“It’s admitting your brains to be a failure 
when you use your fists. Yet there are 
times — You see there are reasons why I 
must make them respect Beaver Hollow. 
It had to be done.” 

“Respect Beaver Hollow’s brute force?” 
queried the tutor with a touch of patient 
scorn. 

“There are fellows who will respect noth- 
ing else,” said Pitt, with his sixteen-year- 
old wisdom. 

“I wish the unmanly art of self-defense 
might be banished from Grimshaw,” said 
the tutor, earnestly. “Of course I can do 
nothing,” he glanced ruefully at his feeble 
frame; “my motives would be suspected.” 


66 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

There was a trace of bitterness in his tone; 
what young man can be wholly patient with 
physical infirmities? 

‘T wish I could be sure that you would 
use your influence against it,” he went on. 
'‘You have proved your courage and muscle; 
now show them that a boy may have these 
and yet be ruled by his gentlemanly in- 
stincts.” 

“I don’t want to fight them,” said Pitt, 

sententiously. He bit ofif his thread with a 
queer grimace. “I have plenty of other 

things to attend to. I think, myself, that 

the world ought to have got altogether be- 
yond the appeal to brute force. But you 

can’t expect Grimshaw Academy to set 
the example.” 

“Grimshaw is a little world in itself; you 
boys haven’t anything to do with the great 
world as yet,” said the tutor. “You are 

going to have influence here, but I am 

afraid you are a little inclined to be pug- 

nacious. Woodrow said that you forced a 
fight with him.” 

Pitt sewed steadily for a moment, and 
then gave his whole attention to tying a 

knot in his thread. 

“I have been reading The Truce of the 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 67 

Bear, and I know Corny Woodrow,” he at 
length laughed. “But I’ll not fight any 
more. I give you my word of honor that 
I’ll not. Mending a jacket is as good as a 
sermon. No, I’ll not fight any more. It 
was chiefly for the honor of Beaver Hollow 
that I did it and for the sake of a Beaver 
Hollow boy who may come after me.” 

“Come after you?” echoed the tutor. 
“When he comes all these boys will be 
gone.” 

“I mean to leave Beaver Hollow writ 
large on the walls,” said Pitt, jocosely. 
“And they may not all be gone. Sometimes 
a little of Grimshaw has to go a long way 
with a boy. Anyhow, I needn’t fight any 
more. I think I have settled them.” 

But Pitt was mistaken. His self-confi- 
dence restored by recent experiences had 
misled him. He had not settled them. 

“At least those fellows who are staying- 
will not interfere with my ‘dig,’ ” Pitt had 
said cheerfully to the tutor. In fact, when 
he knew who were to stay he had been 
tempted to go home. But he would not 
allow himself to go for that reason. No 
such gang as that should scare a Beaver 


68 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

Hollow boy, he declared to himself, stoutly. 
“It’s lucky I promised not to fight. I might 
have another jacket to mend,” he said grimly 
to Abel Goodhue. 

The Thanksgiving day dinner was at two 
o’clock — a stifif and gloomy affair over which 
Pitt choked with longing for the good cheer 
of home, and into which Abel Goodhue and 
the master who presided tried in vain to in- 
fuse something of the spirit of the season. 
The other boys were homeless and indiffer- 
ent to the season which had few associations 
for them, but were sulky over the fare, 
which varied from the usual routine only to 
the extent of turkey and plum pudding. 
But there were boxes upstairs — yes, there 
were boxes upstairs. Pitt knew that there 
v/as to be a spread and that he was the only 
boy not invited. They were of the crew 
who cried “Pumpkinville,” and at the best a 
boy who associated with a tutor was scorned 
in their set. 

Pitt went to walk with Abel Goodhue 
after dinner. They had a long tramp and 
the twilight was falling when they returned. 
It was dark in the long corridor where Pitt 
roomed next to the tutor. He stumbled 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 69 

against an empty, overturned box at his 
door. When he turned the knob he found 
a string of cooked sausages dependent from 
it. 

It had been a long string; the other half 
was hanging from the tutor’s door, having 
evidently broken in the middle while an 
attempt was being made to tie the doors 
together with it. Such strings of sausages 
were used to garnish the Thanksgiving fowls 
at Beaver Hollow. 

Pitt understood in a moment what had 
happened. Hannah had written that they 
meant to send him a Thanksgiving box from 
home. It had come in his absence and those 
boys had rifled it! 

A dainty card was suspended beside the 
sausages : — 


The honor of 

Mr. Pitt Doubleday’s presence 
is requested at 

HIGH TEA IN THE GYM 
at 

Five o’clock. 


70 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

Pitt had been obliged to take the card to 
tlie window at the end of the corridor to 
read it. The tutor being nearsighted had 
gone into his room without observing the 
decoration of his door knob. 

‘T shall take no notice of that,” said Pitt, 
aloud, “but they shall answer to me for the 
contents of my box !” 

Something whirled like a lasso over his 
head. In the dim light from the window he 
saw that it was a worsted muffler, red and 
gray in color. He recognized Hannah’s 
favorite colors and Hannah’s handiwork, 
even as it was fastened tightly round his 
waist, and he was drawn, with irresistible 
force and velocity, down the long, dark cor- 
ridor toward the “gym.” 


CHAPTER V 


I T was clear that an invitation to the 
“gym” spread was not a thing to be 
refused ! Pitt was whirled inside the 
door, breathless, boiling with rage, yet per- 
fectly powerless to help himself. The lasso 
— the worsted muffler which Hannah had 
sent him and which they had taken out of 
his Thanksgiving box — had been fastened 
round him in such a way as to pinion his 
arms tight. A dozen had fallen upon one 
and Beaver Hollow muscle was useless. 

A table was spread daintily, but with 
somewhat fantastic decorations. Strings of 
doughnuts were suspended from the chan- 
delier above it; they were round, with 
holes in the middle, and Hannah always 
made them as . large, almost, as saucers. 
Hannah was proud of her doughnuts, and 
was always so pleased that the boys liked 
them better than other people’s doughnuts. 

Suspended by long strings above the table 
were two blue yarn stockings, filled with 

71 


72 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

butternuts. At one end of the table a skinny 
rooster was propped up on the platter as if 
he were alive. How well acquainted with 
him Pitt was and how well he understood 
the sacrifice that had sent him ! (They had 
to “turn” their turkeys for groceries at the 
Beaver Hollow farm.) Hannah felt great 
pride in her herb bed and had a way of 
keeping some green sage sprays for Thanks- 
giving garniture. There were bits of green 
sage about the fowl, and a large printed 
sign above him announced, “The sage of 
Beaver Hollow.” 

Corny Woodrow had perpetrated that, 
thought Pitt. Corny had quite a reputation 
among the boys as a wit. He and Kendall 
Brewer, a small boy whose parents were in 
India, were the only members of the Grid- 
iron Club among the “left-overs.” Corny’s 
father had been a Grimshaw boy, and one of 
those who had done honor to the academy 
as a statesman. Corny was a clever boy, 
but he had not an agreeable individuality; 
there was a rough side to his character and 
a doubt existed as to whether he were alto- 
gether “straight.” Pie was in the Gridiron 
Club only because of his antecedents and 
his cleverness. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 73 

“We regret to have hurried you/’ said 
little Kendall Brewer, with elaborate polite- 
ness, “but the extherthitheth were about to 
begin.” Kendall struggled under the com- 
bined disadvantages of small stature, a lisp, 
an over-elegant manner, and a single eye- 
glass; and sometimes he needed the protec- 
tion of his friends, especially in the matter 
of the eyeglass, although he could show 
an oculist’s affidavit that it was necessary. 
“Beaver Hollow ith tho genewouthly wepwe- 
thented, that we athk you to acthept the 
theat of honor at the hoth’s wight,” con- 
tinued Kendall, who seemed to have been 
constituted master of ceremonies. 

The lasso from which Pitt had not been 
able to loosen himself was jerked suddenly, 
and he was rushed round the table and 
thrust into a seat. He was trying desper- 
ately to calm his angry passions sufficiently 
to think of the best course to pursue, when 
his eye fell upon a huge turnover — Hannah 
would make her eatables large, perhaps be- 
cause of her experience of boy appetites. A 
bit of paper lay upon it with a scrawl in 
Hannah’s schoolgirl hand : — 

“I want Mr. Goodhue to have half of this. 


74 the boy from beaver hollow 

because he used to like a piece of apple 
turnover out of my dinner pail.” 

Pitt had been trying to think that he 
could carry ofif the affair as a joke; that he 
could be quick-witted enough — he certainly 
had the advantage in that way over those 
fellows — when he recovered his breath and 
his temper to make himself master of the 
situation. But the difficulty was for a fellow 
to recover his temper under such circum- 
stances as these! Corny Woodrow took the 
seat beside him, with an ironical smile. 

The long table was laden with delicacies; 
there had been boxes from Delmonico’s and 
a great hamper of fruit from Florida. Little 
Kendall had friends in Philadelphia who 
sent him the daintiest of bonbons. It was 
a beautiful table; why had they needed to 
make it grotesque with Hannah’s homely 
viands and place him in this uncomfortable 
situation? thought Pitt, with wonder at what 
seemed to him their coarse stupidity. 

He was not humiliated in the way in 
which they had expected; but that they 
could not know. He was full of angry 
shame, not because he had come from Beaver 
Hollow and was accustomed to homelier 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 75 

conditions than they, but because he felt 
that it was a retiection upon his cleverness 
that he should have allowed them to get him 
into this “scrape,” and because he could 
think of no way to get out of it with dig- 
nity. He attempted to withdraw his arms 
from the pinioning scarf, and one of the 
boys offered, with a show of extreme polite- 
ness, to untie it. The force with which Pitt 
had been drawn down the corridor had tied 
the knot very tight. Corny Woodrow drew 
his pocketknife to cut it. 

“No! I’ll not have it cut!” cried Pitt. 
“It means a good deal to me, if you do 
think it’s a ridiculous-looking thing. My 
sister knit it. She spent hours and hours 
doing it and thinking all the time how I 
should like it. She worked at it when she 
was tired, and did it instead of making the 
furbelows for herself that girls like. It’s the 
same way with those blue yarn stockings 
that look so funny dangling over your fine 
table. Only, my mother knit those; she 
hasn’t much time to knit, and one of her 
hands is half paralyzed. It’s creeping 
paralysis, too; every time I have a pair, I 
think she may never knit me another.” 

An astonished silence had fallen all the 


y6 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

length of the table. Corny Woodrow stirred 
uneasily in his seat. “ ‘ ’Tis sentiment kills 

me, says 1/ ” he quoted, in a stage whisper, 
audible all the way down the table. 

“Hear, hear! thpeech, thpeech !“ cried little 
Kendall Brewer, and the cry was echoed with 
a great pounding of knife handles upon the 
table. 

“I don’t want to make a speech,” said 

Pitt. “I only wish to explain why I can’t 
join in any festivities where disrespect is 
shown to treasures — yes, treasures,” he re- 
peated the word with the hot blood dyeing 
his face at the disdainful laugh with which 
it was received, “sent me from home. Pm 
sorry for you fellows who haven’t any 
homes. I don’t think I realized until I 

came here, how great a thing it is to have 

a home. If being fond of home associations 
and — and home affections” — Pitt faltered a 
little and looked shamefaced, but stuck to 
his text bravely — “if that is what you sneer 
at as sentiment, I guess we have a lot of it 
at Beaver Hollow, and I’m very glad of it.” 

There were two or three cheers from the 
farther end of the table; a home-sick sob 
mingled clearly with one of them. 

“Are you going to cheer for a fellow that 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 77 

toadies to a tutor?” cried Corny Woodrow. 
“Here’s to Tutor Goodhue’s chum,” he 
hissed. There was a low, thin, feline hiss 
that was peculiar to Grimshaw. It was sel- 
dom used, being considered the severest 
possible form of reprobation, and it was evi- 
dent that the majority of the boys did not 
think that Pitt deserved it. There was even 
a cry of “Shame !” from several boys, for 
this was a mixed crowd, and Corny Wood- 
row was the acknowledged leader of only a 
few. Hisses, cheers, and cries of “Shame!” 
mingled in a confused uproar. Yet it was 
hushed instantly when Pitt began to speak. 

Curiosity to hear what the Beaver Hollow 
boy had to say was evidently still the 
strongest feeling, and fully half the boys 
sympathized with him. Sentiment is not by 
any means an unknown quantity among 
boys, and moreover, many of them under- 
stood that they were only helping Corny 
Woodrow to satisfy a private grudge — the 
outcome of a triumph of Beaver Hollow 
muscle in an encounter which Pitt thought 
had been forced upon him by persistent 
nagging and jeers. 

“There’s another way in which we are 


78 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

different in Beaver Hollow,” said Pitt, 
“and that is that we fight squarely.” Then 
the cheers got the better of the hisses alto- 
gether. “It’s never twelve to one at Beaver 
Hollow!” continued Pitt, with a ring of 
scorn in his voice. 

“It was only for fun!” piped a high voice 
in the pause. That was young Gilroy, whose 
father was an army officer stationed on the 
western frontier, and whose mother had died 
in the last year. 

“We didn’t want a boy left out, and you 
wouldn’t come,” explained Sam Hitchcock, 
with a laugh. Sam was a boy who could 
distinguish himself in debate, but had no 
muscle with which to back up his argument. 

“I’m not offering any objections to the 
way I came,” said Pitt, quickly. “I can 
stand a little horse-play as well as another 
fellow. But I don’t allow people to meddle 
with my private possessions, whether they 
are sacred, as in this case, or not.” 

A boy held up the platter on which the 
ancient rooster stood upright. “Sacred 
possession ! The sage of Beaver Hollow !” 
he cried. “Must be one of Doubleday’s 
relatives.” 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 79 

The crowd was not quite cheap enough to 
regard this as a witticism, but it laughed 
for the sake of hilarity. 

‘T don’t allow anyone to open my 
trunks or boxes,” repeated Pitt, with judicial 
firmness. “If it occurs again I shall” — Pitt 
paused; there was a lump in his throat that 
had to be choked down. There was a dead 
silence. ‘T shall report the outrage to the 
proper authorities.” 

One moment of hushed amazement and 
then groans and hisses arose. 

‘T came here intending to make Beaver 
Hollow respected,” continued Pitt, instantly 
commanding a hearing. “I tried it after 
your own way. Pm — Pm sorry to say that 
it’s the Beaver Hollow way, too. When a 
fellow sauces us we punch his head; if he 
does more we thrash him soundly. I think 
I know just what fellow opened my box. 
There are some here who wouldn’t quite 
have stooped to do it, although they have not 
scorned to share the entertainment that it 
offered. I think that boy honor is a little 
queerer here than it is at Beaver Hollow. 
But never mind ! I know, as I say, who 
opened my box, and I can thrash them in- 


8o THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

dividually or collectively. I have proved 
that in one or two instances at least” — 

Poor, foolish Pitt, who had to be a boy 
and make his ill-timed boast ! — Hisses — 
a storm of hisses with only a cheer or two 
thrown in. 

“But now I have decided,” continued 
Pitt, hushing the tumult sufficiently to be 
heard, “I have decided, or rather it has been 
suggested to me” — 

“The tutor, the tutor suggested it to 
him !” shouted a voice. 

— “That the appeal to brute force is un- 
worthy of a gentleman. That it is brainless 
and stupid, and — and that boys should be in 
better business than pommeling each other.” 

Pitt felt that this was an anticlimax to 
the somewhat grandiloquent beginning of his 
sentence. In truth, he was not only afraid 
of a too-soaring rhetoric, but he was be- 
coming a little confused — a dozen to one 
were a good many ! 

“In fact, I have given my word that T 
will not fight again” — 

“The tutor! He has given his word to 
Tutor Goodhue! Coward! coward!” The 
groans and hisses seemed p^eneral now. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 8 I 


The Grimshaw ideals had not risen above 
the ancient notion that to fraternize with a 
teacher is treachery, and Tutor Goodhue 
was not a favorite. 

“I shall not fight,” repeated Pitt, still 
with his grand air, although, in truth, the 
table wavered a little before his eyes and the 
boys’ faces began to look a long way off, 
or, indeed, like something seen only vaguely, 
as in a dream. 

He pulled himself together with an effort. 
He recalled oddly enough the time when he 
had thrashed big Billy Comerford for tor- 
menting Hannah’s kitten. He had felt 
bruised and sore in body and spirit then, 

and he felt so now. His mother had 

blamed him then; she had said that fighting 
was low and mean. But what could one do 
with a miserable bully like Billy Comerford? 

'‘Take the kitten and run home with it,” 
his mother had said. But it was Pitt’s 

theory that you had to teach Billy Comer- 
ford not to do it again ! Pie had been but 
ten then, but he had been puzzled. The 
same problem was puzzling him now; but he 
knew, now, that he shared it with wiser 

heads than his own, and that the trying to 
puzzle things out was a discipline. 


82 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


“Coward! coward!” they shouted, and 
stung him into self-possession again. 

“I shall not fight any of you, but I shall 
demand the restoration of my property.” 

He pushed back his chair. He took the 
red and gray muffler that hung over the 
back of the chair and folded it carefully. 
There were whispered conferences among 
the boys. They were looking at Corny 
Woodrow to see what he was going to do. 

Corny himself was looking undecided. He 
was anxious to do just what might be ex- 
pected of a leader, which it was his great 
ambition to be. It ought not to be hard 
to put down this country bumpkin — not, at 
least, with all that he knew about him! He 
had meant to reserve that knowledge, his 
crowning triumph of revenge, for another 
occasion. He had meant only to humiliate 
Pitt; to have a little fun with him, as the 
boys said, on this occasion. But the Beaver 
Hollow boy seemed to be coming out of it 
pretty well, himself. There were half- 
muffled cheers here and there. Corny knew 
that it would take but little to turn the tide 
of sympathy wholly toward the Beaver 
Hollow boy. Pitt walked steadily down be- 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 83 

side the table with the folded muffler under 
his arm. 

“Better stay, now you’re here! Only tea 
and seed cakes downstairs !” called a voice 
in friendly tones. 

“Not where I’ve been called a coward,” 
answered Pitt, sturdily. 

“Oh, take that back, fellows! it’s Thanks- 
giving !” called the friendly voice. It be- 
longed to young Gilroy. 

Pitt had stopped to cut down the blue 
yarn stockings that hung over the table. 
He hesitated. Here was another phase of 
the problem ! Should he stay if they took 
it back? Perhaps they had done it only for 
fun; they could not realize what the homely 
gifts from Beaver Hollow meant to him. 
Pitt had generous impulses, and there was 
a longing for good fellowship in his bruised 
and homesick heart. 

“Coward ! if — if that kind of a coward 
were all, we might perhaps take it back !” 
shouted Corny Woodrow, pounding on the 
table for silence. “But he is a coward in a 
far worse than a physical way! I didn’t 
mean to tell what I knew until the right 
time came; until the Gridiron Club voted on 


84 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

his nomination! But it’s high time he was 
kicked out of every honest fellow’s company I 
He’s a cheat I a sneaking cheat ! He stole 
the essay out of a paper, the one that he 
read on his graduation day. He made his 
old uncle think that he wrote it, to get the 
chance for an education — the chance to come 
here to Grimshaw among gentlemen 1 He 

stole the chance away from his cousin who 
ought to have had it!” 

■ Pitt’s face was deadly pale under the 

flaring lights. The stockings shook in his 
hands and the' butternuts were spilled over 
the table. 

‘‘It’s — it’s a lie!” he cried; but his voice 
shook. 

Corny Woodrow started toward him 
threateningly, but someone held him back. 

He had lost his temper entirely, or he 

would have known how to arouse the boys 
and use the advantage that he had gained. 
He seized Hannah’s apple turnover and 
threw it at Pitt, who had turned toward the 
door. It hit him squarely, and he turned 
an apple-smeared cheek toward his foes. 

This was in the nature of a “lark” ! The 
boys had lost their sympathy for the Beaver 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 85 

Hollow boy, and they loved a lark. They 
gathered up the butternuts — there had been 
several quarts in those long blue stockings — 
and hurled them recklessly at Pitt. The 
door opened suddenly and Tutor Goodhue 
stood inside. It happened too suddenly for 
the nut throwers to forbear, even if it had 
been altogether certain that they wished to 
do so. A fusillade of nuts struck the tutor’s 
head; one struck him on the eye, smashing 
one of the lenses of his glasses. He uttered 
a sharp cry of pain as a splinter of glass 
penetrated the eyeball. 

'T guess you’ve got about enough of 
being my friend !” cried Pitt, with half- 
hysterical bitterness. 

The tutor groped dizzily and leaned upon 
Pitt’s shoulder. Splinters of the glass had 
scratched his face and blood was trickling 
down, frightening the boys more than the 
grave injury to the eye which they did not 
yet realize. 

^^Go for a doctor, some of you, quick! 
quick!” cried Pitt, as he led the tutor 
away. 


CHAPTER VI 


I S — is he in pain?” 

An anxious whisper came to Pitt’s 
ears as he stepped out of the tutor’s 
room into the dimly lighted corridor. It 
was almost midnight; the bell which meant 
“all lights out” had rung nearly two hours 
before; but behind young Gilroy in the cor- 
ridor were half a dozen boys waiting 
breathlessly for Pitt’s answer. To do them 
justice, their fear was not all for themselves, 
although the possible consequences of their 
recklessness did loom rather large in the 
background of their consciousness. 

“He was in pain; the doctors were 
obliged to put him under the influence of 
opiates,” answered Pitt, coldly. 

He was angry and dejected. It was Abel 
Goodhue’s watchful care over him that had 
caused this painful accident, and he felt re- 
sponsible to a depressing degree. He felt 
altogether disgusted with those boys, but he 
said to himself that he did wish the tutor 
86 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 87 


could have left him to fight his own battles! 
His own share in the matter, even that 
dreadful accusation of Corny Woodrow’s 
which had turned the crowd against him 
as one boy, had been forgotten in the fright 
and anxiety of the accident to the tutor. 
Now, as he faced them again, it came back 
like a stinging blow. 

“Will he — will he lose his sight?” asked 
another boy, falteringly. 

“He will lose the sight of that eye, 
probably. The oculist couldn’t be certain,” 
answered Pitt. “The shock to his constitu- 
tion will be severe, the doctor says. He 
isn’t strong,” he added, after a moment of 
dead silence. 

“We never meant to do any such thing 
as that,” said Corny Woodrow, hoarsely. 

“It wath only a lark; that ith, it wath 
meant to be only a lark,” said little Kendall 
Brewer, in a tone of dispassionate expla- 
nation. 

“Larks don’t always turn out as you 
think they will,” said Pitt, sagely; “but I 
know that some of you fellows didn’t mean 
any harm,” he said, generously. He was a 
boy, and he said to himself that he might 


88 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLpW 


have got into such a scrape as that himself 
— although he should not have opened an- 
other fellow’s box; that was against the 
Beaver Hollow code of honor. 

“Butternuts are hard. You would have 
known that if you had been brought up in 
Beaver Hollow!” he said grimly, as he 
turned away toward his own room. 

“Thyall we all be thuthpended?” de- 
manded Kendall Brewer, breathlessly. 

There was an expectant hush in the dark 
corner where the boys were grouped, and 
Pitt kept them for a moment in suspense. 

“Mr. Goodhue told the master that it was 
unintentional; that it was only sport,” he 
said slowly. 

There was a subdued murmur in the group 
that under different circumstances would 
have been a cheer. 

“You may be reprimanded,” added Pitt. 
“I shouldn’t suppose there would be any- 
thing worse than that.” 

Again the subdued murmur; that group 
was used to reprimands and didn’t mind 
them much. 

“You — you — you’re not such a bad fellow 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 89 

yourself !” This came from young Gilroy, 
who stammered when he was excited. 

But young Gilroy was apparently alone in 
this sentiment. Whatever the Grimshaw 
standard of honor might lack, it was strong 
against cheating. The boy who had stolen 
his graduation essay out of a paper was 
not to be fellowshiped even by the boys who 
had opened his box and turned his sacred 
home associations to ridicule. 

'Tt isn’t exactly a question of what I am,” 
said Pitt, dryly. ‘T certainly am not a tell- 
tale, if that is what you mean. My box 
has been returned to my room in about as 
good order as you fellows could manage, I 
suppose, under the circumstances.” A faint 
smile flickered over Pitt’s face, which looked 
very pale in the dim light. “As for the 
name that I was called” — there was a wave 
of color over Pitt’s white face, and the boys 
stood like stone statues and waited as he 
paused — “and — the accusation that was 
brought against me, I — I can’t refute them 
now.” 

Almost a groan came from the dark corner 
and a faint sibilant sound restrained only by 
the seriousness of the situation and the fear 


90 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

of discovery. It made the blood rush to 
Pit’s head and ring in his ears. 

“I can say that they are false” — His 
voice shook. 

“Proof! proof!” came in a whisper from 
the corner. 

“It ithn’t the time or plathe to demand 
proof,” said Kendall Brewer, unexpectedly 
and with dignity. 

Pitt had reached the door of his room 
and he opened it, stood for a moment ir- 
resolute, then entered the room and closed 
the door behind him. 

“It’s the end of Grimshaw for me, because 
I can’t say anything!” he said aloud, in the 
privacy of his room. “Great things I am 
doing to smooth the way for anybody else !” 
he added, with ineffable self-scorn. “Could 
Alf Gates have told, after all? Corinna is 
so far away. I rather guess it’s true that 
murder will out.” 

He made the slight change in his dress 
for which he had come, and returned to 
the tutor’s room to spend the remainder of 
the night beside his bed. The two Con- 
caster nurses, on whom Grimshaw depended 
in time of need, were both absent for the 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW QT 

Thanksgiving season. Moreover, the tutor 
had shown great reluctance to have Pitt 
leave him and Pitt had begged to stay. 

The injured man was now in a deep sleep, 
the result of the opiates that had been given 
him when the pain in his eyeball became 
too intense to be borne. As Pitt dropped 
into an armchair in the dimly-lighted room, 
where the silence seemed only intensified by 
the heavy breathing of the sleeper, the bells 
on the oldest church in Concaster began to 
ring their midnight chime. It was an 
ancient chime of bells; some were cracked 
and rang out of tune. There was a differ- 
ence of opinion in Concaster as to whether 
the chime should be allowed to ring at all, 
disturbing midnight slumbers. But the con- 
servative element was the stronger one in 
the old city, and “Watchman, tell us of the 
night” came to Pitt’s ears clearly on the 
still air. 

It was as if he were hearing it sung in 
the Beaver village church. Old Deacon 
Hiram Tukey’s quavering tenor mingled with 
the bells’ chime. “Trarv’ler o’er yon mount- 
ing’s height,” the deacon used to sing, and 
the boys, sitting behind the stove, were apt 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


to laugh. Matronly heads would be shaken 
even before the deacon had reached that 
line. rieber, too, would laugh, sometimes, 
good as he was. “Dear old Heber, I didn’t 
mean to do anything to hurt him,” mur- 
mured Pitt. “Perhaps it’s true that you 
can’t very well hurt yourself alone.” 

“Watchman, does its beauteous ray 
Aught of hope or joy foretell?” 

It was as if the words rang in his ears. 
And good Parson Goodhue’s face had such 
an uplifted look ! Even the graceless boys 
behind the stove observed it. 

It was he who had brought this trouble 
upon Parson Goodhue’s son ! If he could 
have told them that that wasn’t true about 
the essay! He had cried out, “It’s a lie!” 
obeying his first instinct of self-defense. But 
he knew there had not been the right ring 
in his voice. He had been so taken by sur- 
prise ! 

“Peace and truth, its course portends.” 

Peace and truth! They went together, it 
appeared. “If only a fellow could always 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 93 

do what is fair and square and open and 
above board !” murmured Pitt. 

Hannah’s face appeared before him, sud- 
denly. She used to turn round and shake 
her head at the boys behind the stove when 
their mother wasn’t at church. Hannah was 
the squarest girl; she hated anything that 
wasn’t perfectly open and above board. But 
in this world one must be diplomatic. “If 
I can only make things come out right !” 
said Pitt to himself. 

Abel Goodhue tossed restlessly and mut- 
tered in his sleep. Pitt feared lest the 

opiates should lose their effect sooner than 
the doctors had expected and Abel should 
awake — awake again to the intense pain. 

As he bent over him anxiously Abel 

spoke audibly, opening his eyes wide, yet 
with a certain lack of intelligence in them 
which showed that he was still asleep. 

“The key!” he said. “Carry the key 

back ! They must know” — The mutter- 
ing became incoherent, then ceased, and the 
tutor slept heavily again. 

“He is dreaming, poor old fellow!” said 
Pitt, and smoothed the pillows with a tender 
pity. Beaver Hollow boys loved Abel Good- 


94 the boy from beaver hollow 

hue, although he had not “caught on” — to 
use the schoolboy slang current at Grini- 
shaw. 

Pitt bethought himself of a letter that he 
had found in the box from home and had 
thrust into his pocket unopened in the ex- 
citement and distress of the accident. He 
sat down by the shaded night lamp and 
opened it. It was in Hannah’s careful, 
laborious hand, with every “i” dotted and 
every “t” crossed, and the tiniest of blots 
scraped with the ink eraser. Hannah had 
said in her first letter that she felt as if she 
must put on her best dress and her em- 
broidered white apron when she sat down 
to write a letter that was going to Grim- 
shaw Academy ! She didn’t want to dis- 
grace him, she said. Pitt remembered that 
now. 

“Disgrace me!” he said to himself with a 
queer little grimace. “I wish that I had 
never come here or that I had never” — 

The tutor stirred and muttered again in 
his sleep, giving Pitt the startled sense of a 
possible listener to his murmured self-re- 
proaches. 

‘The key ! Can’t you carry back the 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 95 


key?” the tutor said clearly, in a tone of 
distress. 

Pitt bent over him. He was still asleep. 
‘‘There’s something on his mind,” thought 
Pitt. “Has everybody a secret? He takes 
life too hard — feels too responsible about 
the boys; or else perhaps it’s only the effect 
of the drug.” 

He sat down again and proceeded to read 
Hannah’s letter. 

“We think your letters are beautiful; you 
make us see just how things are there,” 
wrote Plannah. “Mother read one of your 
letters to the schoolmaster, and he said he 
thought you were a remarkably good writer. 
He said that your graduating essay had 
really surprised him; he didn’t wonder that 
it had made Uncle Amos think you were 
very smart.” 

Pitt made an impatient movement. “Shall 
I never hear the last of that thing?” he 
muttered. 

“Mother hopes great things of you.” 

“Mother hopes!”. Pitt stirred uneasily 
again. How many heedless boys have been 
cut to the quick by those words, “Mother 
hopes” ! 


96 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

“I heard her tell Parson Goodhue that she 
hoped you would be a minister. We used 
to think that Heber would be the minister, 
you know, before he got the doctoring into 
his head. That makes me think of a queer 
thing about Heber that we’ve just found 
out. He has been queer anyway, almost 
ever since you went away. I suppose that 
he felt worse than we knew because he 
couldn’t go to Grimshaw. He wouldn’t 
show it for fear of spoiling your comfort 
and ours; and there couldn’t be a bit of 
envy about dear old Heber — that we know. 
He couldn’t have been prouder of the essay 
if he had written it himself. He had it 
tucked away in his Bible, printed as if it had 
been cut out of a newspaper. It fell out when 
I was dusting in his room. Did you know 
that it had ever been printed in a paper? 
I asked him, but he shut me up almost 
roughly. 

“He is very cross for him — and queer. 
He told me not to say anything about it to 
anybody, but, of course, there could be no 
objection to my telling you. If it has been 
thought worthy of being printed in a paper 
I think you ought to know it. Heber has 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 97 

been going off by himself Saturdays, and in 
all the other time that he could get out of 
school, and we have only just found out 
where. It seems that there’s a retired phy- 
sician in East Ephesus who has taken a 
great interest in Heber, and is teaching 
him. Ele’s a specialist in nervous diseases, 
but he doctors the people round here for 
everything and doesn’t ask any pay. He's 
rich and benevolent. It was so queer that 
Heber didn’t say a word about him ! And 
we shouldn’t know how he got acquainted 
with him if we hadn’t heard it by accident. 

“Alf Gates came round tin peddling; 
you know he gave up coming this way, but 
he has taken it up again; and he told us 
that Heber had given or sold his son Alf a 
gun — that old gun that was his father’s — 
just think of it! We wouldn’t have believed 
that Heber would part with that for love 
or money. Alf said that it was some kind 
of a boy’s trade; he believed that Heber 
had hired young Alf to keep dark about 
something that he knew. But that seems 
too queer to be true, evem as Heber is be- 
having now. What could young Alf Gates 
know that Heber would want to keep 
7 


98 THE BOY FROM BEAVER FIOLLOW 

secret? Father was very indignant. He 
told the tin peddler that our boys didn’t 
have any dishonorable secrets, nor have to 
hire anybody to keep still. Alf Gates just 
laughed and said nothing; you know he can 
be rather disagreeable sometimes. 

“Of course, it isn’t possible that Heber 
could have had any secret that he wanted 
the boy to keep, but the fact remains that 
young Alf has the gun and Heber can’t be 
made to say a word, except that it was his 
gun, and he had a right to do as he pleased 
with it. I never knew father to get so 
angry with Heber before. But that was 
how Heber got acquainted with Doctor 
Gwynne. I do run on so ! I think what 
Miss Penfold said about my composition 
was true — that it was 'prolix.’ Isn’t that a 
dreadful word? But since I have a brother 
who could write that essay on ‘Our Rela- 
tions with the Philippines’ ” — 

“Is she going to harp on that string until 
she drives me crazy?” growled Pitt. He 
held the letter for a moment above the 
flame of the lamp. The edges shriveled 
and blackened, but he withdrew it before 
the writing became illegible. “There may 




THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 99 

be more! Fd better know the worst,” he 
said to himself, grimly. “But there can’t be 
anything worse than to hurt Heber! The 
dear old boy! Can he have thought” — 
He shook himself impatiently and resumed 
the reading of the letter. 

“I don’t care if I am called prolix. It 
seems that the gun kicked — whatever that 
may mean — when young Alf Gates fired it, 
and hurt him so that he was insensible for 
a good while. Heber was there — it seems 
that he had just carried the gun to young 
Alf — and he ran for this Doctor Gwynne, 
who lives near the tin peddler’s. The 
doctor took a great fancy to Heber, and he 
is teaching him — medicine, I suppose, but 
Heber never says a word. He seemed very 
much put out, because we had heard about 
it. This is all so unlike Heber, that, of 
course, we can’t help worrying about him — 
though Parson Goodhue told father not to. 
He said he thought the Lord was with 
Heber. If he is, it seems very funny that 
Heber should be hiring young Alf Gates to 
keep dark with a gun !” 

“Pshaw!” ejaculated Pitt, angrily, and he 
tore Hannah’s voluminous missive in two 


LtfC. 


100 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


and threw it impatiently from him. Then 
he gathered it up and held the pieces to- 
gether so that he could hnish reading it. 

“How anybody can be so blind as to sus- 
pect Heber of being anything but a saint,” 
he said to himself. “A pretty mess I have 
made of it ! I wish that when I promised 
Abel Goodhue I wouldn’t fight I had made 
a special exception of that sneak, Alf Gates ! 
If anybody could say that he wasn’t suffer- 
ing for a thrashing” — 

“We killed the pig,” Hannah’s letter ran 
on, “and these are our own sausages; and I 
send you all the butternuts there were on 
the tree beside your little hen house. I 
guess it’s the first year that you haven’t 
picked them yourself. It was a bad year 
for butternuts. I hope the rooster isn’t 
tough. Don’t forget to tell us about this 
when you write. Phoebe Orcutt knit a 
piece in your muffler, for you to remember 
her by. She likes Heber, but he doesn’t 
go home with any girl since he’s so queer. 
I wish, and so does mother, that you would 
tell us if you know what makes Heber so 
queer. And so no more at present, 

“From your affectionate sister, 

“Hannah Doubleday.” 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


lOI 


“And so no more! Well, it’s enough!” 
murmured Pitt, sarcastically. “What will 
she say when she knows? It’s queer that 
not one of them guesses the truth !” 

A noise from the bed made Pitt start to 
his feet. The tutor had raised himself and 
was reaching for his clothes that hung upon 
a chair. Plis eyes were wide open, but ex- 
pressionless, as before. 

“The key ! Can’t you get somebody to 
carry back the key?” he murmured. “There’s 
money there ! They will find it gone” — 

“What key?” Pitt laid his hand upon 
Abel Goodhue’s shoulder and spoke earnestly. 

“The key — the key that opens the sluice 
gates,” murmured the tutor. 

“He is dreaming of that Indian book we 
were reading. It’s the influence of that 
opiate,” said Pitt to himself. Nevertheless 
when the tutor had grown quiet again, Pitt 
looked through all his pockets for a key. 

But there was none to be found. 


CHAPTER VII 


T he tutor was much better the next 
day, although he was not allowed to 
leave his darkened room. Pitt stayed 
with him as closely as he would permit, and 
the boys came to inquire about his eye, 
solicitously, and with profuse apologies. The 
oculist had decided that the sight of the in- 
jured eye was safe, and when the remaining 
three days of the vacation were over the 
tutor appeared and attended to most of his 
ordinary duties, his eye closely covered by a 
green shade. 

The boys who had caused his suffering 
were deeply conscious of the generous for- 
bearance of his attitude toward them, and 
popularity seemed likely to come to him 
with a sudden bound. But he was more 
shrinking and self-conscious than before, 
the result probably of the nervous shock, 
thought Pitt. Several times Pitt had been 
on the point of asking him whether any- 
thing about a key had been worrying him in 
102 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW IO3 

his sleep on the night of the accident; but 
the tutor, with all his timidity, was not a 
person upon whom one intruded rashly; and 
Pitt’s own circumstances just now gave him 
the habit of respecting privacies, small and 
great. 

In the two hours of recreation, one after- 
noon, Pitt obtained leave to go down town 
to do some shopping. He wanted Abel 
Goodhue to go with him, but the tutor was 
not yet strong enough. He was pale and 
haggard on this day, and Pitt was waiting 
for him to explain a nocturnal vigil which 
seemed to him very mysterious. 

Pitt had been awakened in the small 
hours by the sound of stealthy footsteps 
passing his door. It was a remote corridor 
where he and the tutor roomed, and it led 
only to the gymnasium. The housekeeper’s 
was the only other room that opened from 
it. Pitt instantly suspected some mischief 
afoot among the boys, and he dressed hur- 
riedly and went out into the corridor. The 
footsteps had gone in the direction of the 
“gym,” and Pitt followed softly. The 
door of the reception room — used for busi- 
ness meetings and entertainments — was ajar; 


104 the boy from beaver hollow 

and, looking in, Pitt saw in the moonlight 
a figure beside the little desk in the corner, 
the desk in which the Gridiron Club kept its 
papers. 

Was he going to discover that some Grid- 
iron fellow was meddling with the club’s 
papers — the ball game or tennis records — 
taking advantage of the secretary’s measles 
and the consequent delay in discovery? 

Pitt waited, his heart thumping furiously 
in his ears. 

A key turned in the lock of the desk and 
the figure advanced toward the door. The 
moonlight fell across the face and Pitt 
recognized, with amazement, the tutor. He 
was about to speak, but the stealthiness of 
Abel Goodhue’s gait and air restrained him. 
It was evident that he feared discovery, and 
Pitt shrank behind a window drapery and 
emerged only when the tutor’s footsteps 
had died away in the direction of his room. 

Pitt referred to the fact that he had heard 
footsteps in the night, when he met the 
tutor in the morning, expecting some ex- 
planation. Abel Goodhue’s face looked 
vaguely troubled; he even cast a suspicious 
glance upon Pitt, but he said nothing. Pitt 


THE ROY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW IO5 

thought that the worn and haggard expres- 
sion of his countenance had deepened. 

Comrades of his own had returned, but 
Pitt spurned them all now — who would 
choose to be his comrade when he had been 
denounced as a sneak and a cheat? — and 
went down town alone. 

He had not answered Hannah’s letter; he 
had found that too difficult a task. Hannah 
was one of those round-eyed persons before 
whom deceit slinks even more than before 
the sharp-eyed; so he had decided to send 
her a present instead. He had some money 
that would not be needed now, as he 
thought bitterly, to pay any dues to the 
Gridiron Club. 

A comfortable little roll of bills, more 
money than he had ever possessed before, 
was tucked into his jacket pocket. In 
Beaver Hollow a family council would have 
been called to decide how all that money 
should be spent. They thought in Beaver 
Hollow that twenty dollars was a great deal 
of money. 

A boy ran against him as Pitt paused in 
the crowd. It was little Kendall Brewer, 
who said, “It ith a pleathant day,” with un- 


I06 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

wonted ceremony, and gazed curiously at 
Pitt’s roll of bills. Pitt responded with a 
flush on his face. A boy who was known 
as a sneak and a cheat must be glad when 
even little Kendall Brewer would speak to 
him ! 

He stood doubtfully before a milliner’s 
window. He was determined that Hannah 
should have, for once, something that she 
really wanted. She was quite accustomed 
to having things for a variety of other 
reasons — because they could be made out of 
somebody’s old things, because they were 
cheap, or would last, or could be made over. 

Pitt had a sympathy for that sort of trials, 
which is somewhat rare in a boy. He 
knew just what Hannah wanted — had been 
wanting for years. It was a hat with a 
pink feather, and he meant that she should 
have it. Extravagant or frivolous or foolish 
though it might be, he meant that she 
should have it. “Some people don’t know 
what it is for a girl never to have anything 
that she wants,” said Pitt to himself, in de- 
fense of his extravagance. He would have 
bought a gun for Heber, but the last thing 
that Heber wanted was to shoot things. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW IO7 

Pitt meant to get the gun which Heber 
treasured because it was his father’s, from 
that rascal of an Alf Gates, one of these 
days, when he could straighten things out. 

It was embarrassing in the millinery shop. 
The girls turned away their heads to smile 
when he asked for a hat with a pink feather, 
and the one who waited on him was over- 
elaborate in her politeness. Was it an even- 
ing hat or a carriage hat that he wished? — 
or possibly it was for a reception? They 
were dress hats upon which pink feathers 
were used, she explained. 

It was just for all the time, Pitt ex- 
plained; and, although his face was red, he 
added, stoutly, that it was for a very pretty 
girl. 

The attendant produced from a glass case 
in an inner room an extremely elaborate 
piece of headgear. It was made of white 
lace, shining beads, and pink feathers. It 
was bewildering to Pitt’s unaccustomed 
eyes, but he felt sure that Hannah would 
understand it. The girl put it upon her 
head and posed before him. 

Pitt said in a gruff, embarrassed voice 
that it was just the thing, and he would 


I08 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

take it. He thought it might be four or 
five dollars, and that his mother would be 
dismayed at his extravagance, but he was in 
a reckless mood. 

The attendant placed it in a box — a very 
large box, for the pink feathers were tall. 

“Sixteen dollars, please. Will you have 
it sent?” she asked respectfully. 

Sixteen dollars for a hat! Pitt caught his 
breath. He had not known that such a 
thing could be ! 

But he wasn’t going to let those girls find 
out how dismayed he was. He assumed an 
indifferent air as he counted out the money. 
He felt sure that it was successful, but it is 
doubtful, after all, whether those sharp-eyed 
girls didn’t see through it. 

“I will carry it myself,” he said, in a firm 
voice, and walked out of the shop behind a 
great square box that would form a very 
unpleasant contrast to the little round band- 
box on the upper shelf of the spare-room 
closet, where his mother kept the “best 
bonnet” that she had worn for five years. 

The way to the express office led through 
a great many streets. Pitt had upon his 
cap the letters that were the badge of Grim- 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW IO9 

shaw Academy, and people looked curiously 
at him and at the great bandbox. He met 
little Kendall Brewer again on the main 
street; another Grimshaw boy was with him, 
and they both stared and laughed. 

“Hired out to a milliner, Doubleday?” 
called Hazen, the other boy. 

Of course, Pitt cared nothing for that. 
There was another reason than the carrying 
of the bandbox for his turning red and 
white when he met a Grimshaw boy. 

He had the bandbox sent to “Miss Han- 
nah Doubleday, Beaver Hollow,” and then 
there was nothing to do but to go back to 
the academy. He had hoped to buy some- 
thing for every one in the family, as well 
as Hannah, but his laundry bill was due and 
he dared not spend any more money. 

The social atmosphere at Grimshaw that 
night was strange and uncomfortable. Pitt 
felt it at the supper table, in the study hour, 
most of all at recreation time. Not a boy 
would speak to him who could by any possi- 
bility avoid it. Now that the tutor’s eye- 
sight was out of danger, and their pranks 
had been covered partly by his forbearance, 
they had made an agreement together to 


no THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

ostracize him, thought Pitt, bitterly. Yet 
what could a fellow expect who could not 
deny that he had got to Grimshaw by 
cheating in the meanest kind of way? 

Pitt was not without the virtue of com- 
plete candor, even when he was a victim. 

A message came to his room just before 
the bell rang for “all lights out.” He was 
to present himself in the head master’s 
room at eight o’clock the next morning. 

He lay tossing upon his bed that night, 
while the chimes rang out the old hymn 
that carried the Christmas spirit all through 
the year for Concaster. Yet it was sadly 
true that there were people in Concaster 
who scarcely seemed to know that Christ 
had been born. 

“Traveler, darkness takes its flight, 

Doubt and terror are withdrawn.” 

“Not yet awhile, I guess!” said Pitt to 
himself, bitterly, as the words seemed to 
beat themselves out upon his brain. “When 
a fellow, who has always been as straight as 
he knew how. gets into a little bit of 
trouble, then there’s nobody to believe in 
him !” 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


III 


It was Deacon Tukey’s voice now, in the 
old Beaver Village church, and Hannah was 
smiling at him — smiling joyously, with pink 
feathers waving above her high forehead. 
His mother was there, smiling, too — not 
shaking her head, because there was mischief 
going on behind the stove. 

A blessed sense of peace stole over Pitt 
as he lapsed into deep slumber. Those two, 
his mother and Hannah, would always be- 
lieve in him ! 

Doctor Coxe, the head master of Grim- 
shaw, was a small man with great dignity 

and piercing eyes. A theory prevailed 
among the Grimshaw boys that those eyes 
could see through a fellow whatever he 

might be trying to hide. Certain it was 
that they had more than once brought the 
guilty to a wholly unintended confession. 

Pitt faced them next morning, pale and ill 
at ease. The housekeeper was in the study, 
too. Pitt wondered, vaguely, why she 

should be there and should look at him 

so severely. 

Abel Goodhue came in and sat down be- 
side the master — beside him, but nearer to 
Pitt, who looked at him with a wan smile. 


I 12 


THE BOY FROxM BEAVER HOLLOW 


So Abel had to know, too! He would 
feel the disgrace of a Beaver Hollow boy. 
He hoped that it would not restore the 
tutor’s old unpopularity in the school that 
he had been so intimate with him. 

He was rehearsing over and over in his 
mind what he would say. He would tell 
them that he could not explain about the 
essay yet, but perhaps later on he could. 
Why should they not believe him — a fellow 
who had always been straight? 

“Where were you night before last?” de- 
manded Doctor Coxe, and the piercing eyes 
were on Pitt’s face. 

“In — in bed,” stammered Pitt, but promptly, 
and not without a sense of relief. Nothing 
had happened at Grimshaw that he could 
not explain! 

“Were you in the gymnasium at midnight, 
or after?” 

In a flash Pitt recalled his discovery of 
the tutor. He looked at Abel Goodhue and 
his face blanched. Abel was regarding him 
fixedly, anxiously. His face looked drawn 
and haggard. 

“The suspicion against you is so serious 
that perhaps I should put the question in a 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW II3 

more definite form,” said the head master, 
judicially, when Pitt’s hesitation had lasted 
for fully a minute. 

“A sum of money has been stolen from 
the desk in the gymnasium reception room. 
The key was inadvertently left in the desk 
by the treasurer of the Gridiron Club, who, 
remembering the fact in his illness, sent a 
message to the president of the club asking 
him to see whether the money was safe and 
to lock the desk. The money, as I have 
said, was missing. You were seen by Mrs. 
Canwell to steal softly away from the gym- 
nasium door and down the corridor the 

night before it was discovered that the 
money was missing. You have said that 

you were in bed. Would you like to cor- 
rect that statement?” 

The piercing eyes were on his face. Pitt 
turned away and looked at Abel Goodhue. 

There was a look of piteous appeal on the 
tutor’s face. What could it mean? Pitt 

felt utterly dazed. 

“I was there, sir; Mrs. Canwell is quite 
right. I had forgotten it for the moment.” 
Pitt’s own voice sounded strange in his ears, 
as if it belonged to someone else. He 
8 


1 14 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

shrank from the solution of the mystery that 
was evolving itself in his own mind. Could 
Abel Goodhue, with his saintliness, with the 
look of his father about him, with the 
Beaver Hollow traditions of unwavering 
honesty as the breath of his nostrils, be a 
common thief? 

It was not to be believed! Yet why did 
the tutor look at him with such wistful ap- 
peal? 

“You had forgotten it?” echoed the head 
master, in a tone of amazement. “Was it so 
common a thing to haunt the gymnasium at 
that hour of the night that the matter slipped 
your memory?” 

“No, sir; I never went before. But I for- 
got, because it — it wasn’t very important.” 
Pitt stammered and looked down. He could 
see that the tutor was still regarding him 
with the same eager, anxious gaze, and the 
tutor’s face was so drawn and tense that it 
looked suddenly old. Pitt had a vague, be- 
wildered fancy that it was old Parson Good- 
hue’s face, full of reproach and appeal. 

“Will you tell me why you went?” The 
head master’s words had seemed to Pitt like 
icy drops that chilled him as they fell; but 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW II5 

now there came into his voice a strain of 
earnestness that sounded kind. Into Pitt’s 
struggling consciousness stole the soothing 
sense that the master wished him to clear 
himself of the dreadful suspicion. 

“I was following Tutor Goodhue!” It 
almost burst from his lips, this sentence, 
that instantly formed itself in his brain in 
answer to Doctor Coxe’s question. Almost, 
but not quite ! The tradition of sanctity sur- 
rounding Parson Goodhue and his son was 
so strong! One imbibed them in the Beaver 
Hollow air. To betray Abel would mean to 
be untrue to those traditions; it would be 
to bring Parson Goodhue’s gray hairs with 
sorrow to the grave ! Moreover, the tutor 
was weak; never quite like a man among 
men. He (Pitt) was strong — strong and 
almost a man. Would it not be cowardly 
for him to betray what he knew? the knowl- 
edge that he had gained stealthily? 

He turned his eyes deliberately upon the 
tutor. Now was his chance to tell the truth 
and save him from the false accusation ! 

The look in Abel Goodhue’s face was now 
an agony of pleading. 

‘T cannot tell you why I went there,” 


Il6 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

said Pitt, firmly. And although he doubted 
vv'hether his reasoning might not be false, his 
self-sacrifice all wrong, yet for the moment 
he was buoyed up, as was natural, by com- 
mitting himself to a definite line of conduct. 

There was a dead silence in the room for 
a moment or two after Pitt had given his 
answer. When the master spoke his words 
fell again like icy drops. 

“Were you in possession of a considerable 
amount of money yesterday?” he inquired. 

The hot blood rushed to Pitt’s face. What 
a net was closing about him ! In his per- 
plexity about the tutor, he had not thought 
of that “incriminating circumstance.” Kendall 
Brewer had told about the roll of bills ! 

“Yes, sir, I had twenty dollars,” he 
answered. Then by the little stir of emo- 
tion shown by all his listeners, he knew that 
the money stolen had been twenty dollars. 

“Was this money a part of your regular 
allowance?” asked the head master. 

“I don’t have any allowance,” said Pitt. 
“I — I earned the money.” 

His face was scarlet, now, instead of 
white, but he was almost at ease and his 
voice was steady. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW II7 

“How did you earn it?” asked the head 
master. 

“I — I can’t explain how. I am bound by 
a promise. Later on I can — that is, I think 
[ can,” faltered Pitt. 

It sounded pitifully lame and weak as a 
defense, although the young voice was frank. 

“It is unfortunate that there is so much 
that you cannot explain,” said Doctor Coxe, 
dryly. “It is seldom that a Grimshaw boy 
is found destitute of common honesty. I 
am loth to believe that it is so in this case. 
But you must see that circumstantial evi- 
dence is strong against you, and, coupled 
with your inability to explain what is mys- 
terious” — 

“Pitt, for my sake!” cried the tutor; “for 
the sake of your father and mother, for the 
honor of Beaver Hollow that you have 
seemed to think so much of, tell all that you 
can !” He had risen and laid his hand on 
Pitt’s shoulder and his face was pallid. 

For the honor of Beaver Hollow! — when 
he was sacrificing so much for it that he 
felt heroic like those who die for home and 
fatherland ! Pitt felt suddenly the irony of 
the situation. 


Il8 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


“Do you — you want me to tell?” he 
gasped. “1 followed someone to the ‘gym’ 
that night,” he went on hurriedly. “I heard 
stealthy steps passing my door. I followed 
and I saw someone at the desk in the re- 
ception room.” 

“You saw someone there?” Doctor Coxe 
was alert and eager now, rather than judicial. 
“Who was it?” 

Pitt felt the hand upon his shoulder shake. 

“I cannot tell,” he said, firmly. 

“It is a mistaken self-sacrifice that shields 
a thief,” said Doctor Coxe, sententiously. 
“I cannot suppose that a sensible boy like 
you would make it. Think of the disgrace 
you bring upon your family!” 

Pitt’s eyes took on the look of a hunted 
animal. Couldn’t they see that there was a 
kind of perplexity that was enough to drive 
a fellow mad? He shuffled uneasily upon 
his feet and stammered shamefacedly. 

“I — I guess you don’t understand just 
how Ave feel about things at Beaver Hol- 
low,” he said. 


CHAPTER VIII 


you ever!’' exclaimed one of the 
J ) girls in the millinery shop to an- 

other. “That nice, innocent-look- 
ing Grimshaw boy who bought the pink hat 
had stolen the money! It tells all about it 
in the Concaster Dial 1 That’s what that 
little lisping fellow meant when he came in 
here and asked us what the boy bought and 
how much he paid for it and how much 
money he seemed to have. It was twenty 
dollars that was stolen. I saw that he hadn’t 
much left when he paid for the hat. They 
didn’t prove it, and he has been suspended 
pending further investigation, instead of being 
arrested. They say that Doctor Coxe can’t 
bear to have a Grimshaw boy arrested for 
stealing. But it’s perfectly evident that he’s 
guilty. The whole story is in the Dial. 
He is a country boy, too — from Beaver Hol- 
low, away up back somewhere.” 

“Did you ever ! Well, I always say 
there’s as much wickedness in the country 

119 


120 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


as there is anywhere else,” said the other 
girl as she arranged a hat effectively in the 
window. 

“That’s so,” said the first girl, half ab- 
sently. “But I shall always say that he was 
a real nice-appearing boy.” 

Meanwhile the “nice-appearing boy” was 
journeying to Beaver Hollow by train, still 
so bewildered and the prey of such conflict- 
ing emotions that he sometimes had a wild 
fancy that he was not Pitt Doubleday, of 
Beaver Hollow, but someone else altogether. 

Abel Goodhue was with him. He had 
suffered a kind of nervous collapse, the re- 
sult of the accident to his eye, it was sup- 
posed, and at his physician’s suggestion had 
been given a month’s leave of absence. It 
had been his own desire to go home at 
once with Pitt. The boy was willing to care 
for him, but a little sensitive about the sur- 
veillance that the tutor seemed to be exer- 
cising over him. Were they afraid he would 
run away? he said to himself, angrily, or 
was it the tutor’s way of trying to make 
him think that he believed him guilty? 

Altogether puzzling was the tutor’s atti- 
tude. He had made another, a private, ap- 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 


I2I 


peal to Pitt to tell all that he knew and not 
shield the guilty. He had called upon him, 
as Doctor Coxe had done, to remember his 
duty to his family. And Pitt had asked 
himself whether he were crazy or dreaming, 
or whether Abel Goodhue were an arch 
hypocrite. 

Perhaps he was not the thief, but had 
been in the “gym” for another purpose. 
Then why did he not say so? Loyalty to a 
fellow like this was folly, Pitt was saying 
to himself, as the train bore him swiftly 
onward to the home that was disgraced by 
him. But the loyalty was to dear old Parson 
Goodhue — who in the outside world could 
understand what his boys felt for him? — 
and to Beaver Hollow, whose parson’s son 
was held sacred. Abel Goodhue’s downfall 
would be known much farther and remem- 
bered much longer than Pitt Doubleday’s. 
There was that text, too, about the strong 
bearing the burdens of the weak. It seemed 
an unmanly thing to betray Abel Goodhue. 
What was it that Parson Goodhue had said, 
brokenly, with his hand on his head, when 
he bade him good-by? 

“Quit you like a man, my boy! Our 


122 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

Lord was the great exemplar of the manly 
life. And — and whatever befalls, remember 
we are all in the hands of the God who 

sent us his Son.” 

It was manly to bear the burdens of the 
weak. That was what had made Pitt shield 
the tutor so impulsively. 

Now as he left the scene of his painful 

struggle behind him and his brain gradually 
cleared, ^ a reaction ensued and he was 

assailed by doubts. He felt a strong dis- 

gust for his companion, especially when he 
met the wistful, pleading expression of the 
tutor’s weak face. He went away by himself 
on pretext of looking out of the window at 
the other side of the car. 

“I feel too much like punching his head 
or throwing him out of the window !” he 
said to himself, the natural boy being upper- 
most. After all, there was much to be said 
for the simple boy ethics of Beaver Hollow, 
in which Abel Goodhue didn’t believe. A 
mean sneak would understand a thrashing 
while self-sacrifice was thrown away on him, 
thought Pitt. As they neared the junction 
where the Beaver Hollow stage met the 
train, Pitt returned to the tutor. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I23 

“I think I shall keep on to Portland and 
see Uncle Amos! I have just money 
enough. It isn’t because I dread going 
home. I know I’ve got to face that. But 
I think I ought to tell Uncle Amos and — 
and ask his advice about — about ruining 
myself to keep the other fellow’s secret.” 

It had come to that with Pitt and he 
looked steadfastly into Abel Goodhue’s face 
as he said it. 

The tutor did not flinch. He looked re- 
lieved and his face brightened. 

“I think you are right,” he said quietly. 
‘Tt is a great relief to me to know that you 
will tell someone. I think he will advise 
you against the self-sacrifice. I hoped 
that the thief would confess, but that seems 
to be past hoping for.” 

‘"Yes,” said Pitt in a hard voice, “that 
seems to be past hoping for.” 

He did not go out of the car to help the 
tutor upon the Beaver Hollow stage. His 
revulsion of feeling was strong, as was nat- 
ural in a boy. 

So the train rushed on, carrying him, full 
of bitter thoughts, to face Uncle Amos with 
the dreadful truth that in less than two 


124 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

months from the time of his admission to 
Grimshaw he had l^een suspended under a 
most disgraceful suspicion. He had confided 
a little secret to Uncle Amos when he en- 
tered Grimshaw. It seemed only honorable 
to do so when he became his beneficiary. 
The person who held his promise in the 
matter had given him leave. It was the 
secret of a very ambitious plan and Uncle 
Amos had given it his sanction, telling Pitt 
that he was a fine fellow and he was proud 
of him. 

Where would his pride be now? Yet one 
must play the manly part — if only one knew 
what it was ! Uncle Amos was a man of 
the world. He would certainly denounce 
Abel Goodhue if he was told the truth. No 
loyalty to Parson Goodhue or to Beaver 
Hollow traditions would influence him. He 
would not even understand how strong such 
things could be. 

So Pitt went on, still undecided what he 
should say to Uncle Amos. 

Heber was waiting at Beaver Village inn, 
where the stage route ended. His face 
looked pitifully worn and dejected. 

“Pitt?” he asked, anxiously, as the tutor 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I25 

alighted and grasped bis hand, laying the 
other affectionately on his shoulder. 

“He went on to see your Uncle Amos. 
He — he thought an explanation was due to 
him. I think — I hope that he will also tell 
him what he had refused to reveal to any- 
one else — who the thief really was.” The 

tutor spoke falteringly, with an evident effort. 

Heber’s heavy face brightened a little. 
“Doctor Coxe said in his letter that Pitt 

had seen someone at the desk, but wouldn’t 
tell who it was,” he said; and then he 
sighed heavily. “It isn’t believable that Pitt 
would steal,” he added, and his eyes sought 
the tutor’s face for confirmation of this 
assertion. 

“Of course it isn’t !” said the tutor, 

warmly. “But I’ve tried in vain to guess 

who it is he is shielding. There is a mys- 
tery!” 

Heber turned away in silence. There was 
another mystery where Pitt was concerned, 
he thought, dejectedly. 

If a boy would steal his graduation essay, 
would he hesitate to steal money? That 
was the problem which had been torturing 
Heber since Doctor Coxe’s letter had come. 
He had guarded carefully that shameful 


126 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

secret about the essay — he and Phineas. He 
had suffered agonies of self-abasement in 
dickering with young Alf Gates, who had 
demanded further remuneration for his 
silence after the gun had “kicked.” The 
only compensation for these trials had been 
the friendship of Doctor Gwynne, whose ac- 
quaintance he had made on the day of Alf's 
injury. But not even with him had he 
shared Pitt’s secret. 

“Where is Pitt?” asked old Parson Good- 
hue, almost before he touched his son’s 
hand or looked into his face. They had sent 
for the parson to come to the Doubleday 
farm when they had received the head 
master’s letter. It was the Beaver Hollow 
custom when there was trouble. 

Heber heard the tutor explain as he 
(Heber) mounted to the wagon seat beside 
Phineas and noticed the sad inflection of the 
old minister’s voice. 

“Pitt did not come.” That was all he 
said to Phineas, and he declined to meet the 
inquiry in the hired man’s honest eyes. 

“I’m afeard ! I’m afeard !” said Phineas, 
huskily. For Phineas could not help think- 
ing of the essay. 

Pitt’s mother ran out to meet the wagon. 


THE BOY FROM. BEAVER HOLLOW 127- 

with her apron over her head. Pitt had not 
come? Her strong motherly face worked 
convulsively and her bosom heaved. 

Heber exph.ined that he had gone on to 
see Uncle Amos. He had thought it was 
due to him to explain, and he was going to 
ask his advice about telling of the real thief. 

“Then it will come all right — as Parson 
Goodhue said!” cried Pitt’s mother. “For 
his uncle is a man of sense. Why should 
Pitt be bearing a thief’s disgrace for any- 
one?” 

Hannah was at the door with the pink hat 
on her head. It seemed to brighten the 
whole lane as if for a festival. Hannah’s 
mother had not wanted her to put it on, but 
she had persisted. Was she to behave to 
Pitt as if she thought him a thief? 

Pitt’s mother had found the tag inside the 
hat — while Hannah’s mind was altogether 
upon the pink feathers — upon which the 
price was marked. She had tried to find 
out from the Beaver Village milliner whether 
a hat had ever cost sixteen dollars, beating 
all about the bush that the milliner might 
not suspect her reason. 

The milliner averred that she had, with 


128 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

her own eyes, seen, on her visits to the city, 
hats that cost twenty dollars ! After that 
Pitt’s mother, in spite of all her stout as- 
severations, had felt a little enawing tooth 
of doubt. For where could Pitt have 
got twenty dollars? 

Hannah was fresher from fairy-book pos- 
sibilities. Anything might be expected to 
happen in Concaster, and especially when a 
boy was as clever as Pitt. She never even 
questioned the price of the pink hat. She 
took it as if it were the natural efflorescence 
of Pitt’s cleverness and goodness. Plannah 
knew nothing about the stolen essay. Heber 
was still making it worth while for Alf 
Gates to keep the secret. He was sacri- 
ficing all his boyish treasures, and the 
ignoble bribery was wearing on his honest 
soul. His face showed the strain so that 
Mrs. Doubleday brewed herbs for him con- 
stantly, with an anxious mind, and Hannah 
insisted upon his having all the preserves. 

Abel Goodhue’s condition caused anxiety 
all over the village and the Hollow. He 
had always looked like his mother, who had 
been delicate and died early. He had also 
inherited the parson’s nervous temperament, 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I29 

which had made him an invalid in his 
youth, and perhaps had had its part in 
keeping him, a man of great ability, in a 
narrow sphere — to the inestimable gain of 
Beaver Village and Beaver Hollow. 

Some people hoped that it was only the 
green shade over his eye that gave Abel 
that look of extreme pallor and exhaustion, 
but everyone was glad when Doctor Gwynne, 
the great nerve specialist, who had re- 
tired from the busy world to East Ephesus, 
took his case in hand. Parson Goodhue’s 
sweet serenity suffered no apparent lapse, 
yet the loving eyes of his congregation de- 
tected a new tremor in his voice, and a 
wistful anxiety in his eyes whenever he bent 
them upon his son. 

Doctor Gwynne drove rapidly away from 
Beaver Hollow lest he should be besieged 
with inquiries. He feared to lose the seclu- 
sion for which he had left the world. He 
spoke of Beaver Hollow as that queer little 
place where even the boys loved the min- 
ister. 

Pitt came home in less than a week, pale 
and miserable. No, he had not told Uncle 
Amos who the thief was. Uncle Amos had 
9 


130 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

called him a fool. ‘‘Yes, perhaps he was 
one,” he admitted when his mother cor- 
dially indorsed Uncle Amos’s opinion. His 
father had had another serious attack of 
rheumatism, and it had not been thought 
wise to tell him of Pitt’s disgrace. Pitt 
was forced to keep out of his way, there 
being no plausible explanation of a vaca- 
tion at this time. This was one of the 
bitterest drops in Pitt’s bitter cup. He 
had so strongly desired that his father 
should feel in his failing strength that he 
had a strong young shoulder to lean upon. 

A fool? yes, but yet he had done the 
only thing that a fellow — a Beaver Hollow 
fellow — could do, he declared. It wasn’t 
always smooth sailing in this world, even 
when a fellow meant to do right. 

He avoided the minister, to that good 
man’s great grief. But he couldn’t avoid 
his mother. She came into his room after 
he had gone to bed and asked him where 
he had got the money that he had paid for 
Hannah’s hat. He told her that that matter 
would be explained, he hoped, soon. He 
was expecting a letter that would release 
him from a promise not to tell. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I3I 

His motlier groaned as she went out. 
When your own mother ceases to believe in 
you things are pretty bad ! Pitt was 
tempted to tie up his clothes in a bundle and 
run away in the night, like a boy in a story. 
But that would be regarded as a confession 
of guilt and it wouldn’t be a manly thing 
to do. Whatever came, he meant to do the 
manly thing. 

He took Heber into his confidence the 
next day. It was when he came home from 
Alf Gates’s, bringing Heber’s gun and several 
other valued possessions with which the 
latter had bribed Alf Gates to silence. 

He was carrying them up to the wood- 
shed chamber where they belonged, when he 
encountered Heber, who was carrying in an 
armful of wood. 

He had not decided how much he would 
tell Heber, when he called to him to follow 
him up to the wood-shed chamber. 

He dropped Heber’s treasures in a heap 
upon the floor — the gun, the traps, fishing 
rods and books, fox and geese board and a 
stufTed parrot. (Polly had been dear to 
Heber’s heart, and when she died the horse 
doctor had stufifed her for him.) 


132 THE COY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

“You’re an awfully good fellow, Heber,” 
he said as he sat down astride a big pump- 
kin and mopped his brow, for the load had 
been heavy and there had been some cere- 
monies with Alf Gates in the readjustment 
of property rights which had been fatiguing. 
Just what the ceremonies were or whether 
he had previously been absolved from his 
promise to the tutor never transpired. 

“An awfully good fellow, but you’d better 
have left Alf Gates alone. He’s a handful 
for me!” 

“You’re square, Pitt! In spite of every- 
thing I believe you’re square !” burst from 
Heber, as he dangled his long legs from the 
meal chest. 

“If I am, I’m in a round hole,” said Pitt 
feebly, but jocosely, to hide his emotions. 
Then he poured forth to Heber the story of 
Abel Goodhue’s visit to the desk where the 
stolen money was kept — the secret that he 
was keeping at so dear a cost. 

“Uncle Amos said I was a fool to keep 
such a secret for anybody,” said Pitt. “He 
would have stuck to that if he had known 
who it was. He doesn’t know Beaver Hol- 
low! What would you do?” 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I33 

Heber’s face had grown blank with dis- 
may as he listened. His whole figure 
seemed to shrink and droop as he sat silent 
upon the meal chest. 

“But Abel never stole the money, you 
know,"' he said at length. “It could all be 
explained.” 

“Then why doesn't he explain it?” de- 
manded Pitt. "Pve tried to make him ad- 
mit that he was there, but he never will.” 

“Let me tell Doctor Gwynne,” said Heber. 
“Abel is his patient and he will treat it as 
he does all medical secrets; they’re like the 
secrets of the confessional, he always says.” 

Pitt demurred, but he yielded to Heber at 
last. He was fairly worn out, he said, with 
trying to think things out for himself. All 
Beaver Hollow knew that Doctor Gwynne 
was taking an especial interest in Abel 
Goodhue’s case. Abel had gone to the 
doctor’s house to be under the doctor’s 
constant care. 

Not long after that a strange visitor ap- 
peared at the Doubleday farm; a stranger 
to everyone but Pitt, but he soon made the 
others recognize him as Erastus Copp, who 
had spent a summer at Beaver Hollow two 
years before. 


134 the boy from beaver hollow 

“I declare you’re grown to be a young 
man!” said Mrs. Doubleday, to the tall, 
mustachioed youth who carried himself in a 
brisk and businesslike way. 

“Glad to hear you say so ! My uncle 
thinks Tm not old enough to edit a paper, 
and that’s how I came to get Pitt into such 
an ugly scrape. He didn’t want me to have 
boys for contributors, so I had to make Pitt 
promise not to tell that he wrote for the 
Corinna Courier. A good many people 
wouldn’t have believed that a boy not quite 
seventeen wrote that article on ‘Our Rela- 
tions with the Philippines,’ or the sketches of 
school life that he has done since. By the 
way, Pitt, you got that twenty-dollar cheque 
all right? You never said a word about it 
in your letter. Pretty much excited, though, 
weren’t you, old boy, when you wrote? I 
was down with the measles — awfully prev- 
alent this winter — or I should have been 
here before. So when you read that article 
for a graduating essay, they said you stole it! 
A Grimshaw boy that I know got hold of 
that story from East Ephesus, somehow. I 
stopped at Concaster on my way here. 
Used to be a Grimshaw boy myself. Told 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I35 

the doctor the whole story, and made him 
let me read some of your school-life 
sketches to the boys. They pricked up 
their ears, I can tell you. I’ve made it all 
right with my uncle. He wants you on the 
paper, next year !” 

Pitt looked round at the circle of aston- 
ished faces, as the editor of the Corinna 
Courier paused for breath. 

‘T — I settled it with Uncle Amos that I 
should get a place on the paper next year— 
I proved to him that I had a knack at that 
sort of thing,” he said, modestly. 

‘T should think so !” interpolated the 
editor, fervently. 

''And I’ve struggled to learn to write 
good English; and Uncle Amos promised 
that Heber, who is likely to be a minister 
or a great doctor, should go to Grimshaw 
instead of me next year.” 

"Only a country paper, the Corinna 
Courier,” said the editor, modestly. "Not 
altogether worthy of Pitt's talents, but good 
practice for a beginner. But what is this 
they told me about a grave charge against 
you, Pitt? I didn’t pay much attention, it 
was so absurd, but the master questioned 


136 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

me about a cheque I had said I sent you, 
and the fellows behaved queerly.” 

“1 — ril tell you!” Heber stood forth, 
eagerly, his stooping shoulders almost erect, 
a light in his clear gray eyes. “I didn’t 
dare to tell you before for fear it wouldn't 
come true, but it will, I know it will ! 
Things do straighten out so that the truth 
is shown. Doctor Gwynne says that Abel 
Goodhue walks in his sleep 1 He thinks he 
took the money and hid it in his sleep 1 
He has found out that he knew that the 

key had been left in the desk, and that he 
was anxious lest the boys should lose their 
money. He is going back to Grimshaw 
with Abel — Doctor Coxe had given his con- 
sent, and he is going to watch to see if 
Abel doesn’t go to the ‘gym’ again in his 

sleep and show where he hid the money. 
It — it sounds like a story book, too good 
to be true; but Doctor Gwynne understands 
Abel’s condition, and he says that there are 

nine chances out of ten that he will do it.” 

“Abel Goodhue! Abel? It was Abel 
that you saw?” gasped Mrs. Doubleday. 
She arose deliberately and went over to the 
wood box where Pitt sat, and hugged him. 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I37 

“I don’t know as ’twas right; I suppose 
’twas foolish ! But I don’t know but I 
should have done it myself!” she said. 

“It makes me think of the old-country 
loyalty to a king — the way you feel toward 
that old minister,” said Erastus Copp. 

If it did seem like a story book and too 
good to be true, as Heber said, things came 
to pass exactly as Dr. Gwynne had predicted. 
He had not been three days at Grimshaw 
before he had the head master called in the 
night to see, with him, the tutor steal softly 
to the “gym,” try the desk and find it 
locked, then go to a little niche in the wain- 
scoting, hidden by a curtain, and withdraw 
a little roll of bills. 

He tried again to open the desk, but it 
was securely locked. Then he sought an- 
other hiding place for the money and found 
it between the leaves of a book upon 
the desk. 

“He must not be awakened,” the doctor 
said, and it was not until the next day that 
he knew he was the thief for whose sake 
Pitt had borne so much. Pitt went back to 
school immediately. The letter in which 
Doctor Coxe requested him to do so was 


138 THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW 

very dignified but sympathetic, even affec- 
tionate, to one who could read, as Pitt did, 
between the lines. 

He went in the old pung, for there was 
snow on the ground. Phineas had a load 
of poultry which their old horse Nutmeg 
could draw. They were waylaid on the 
Concaster main street by a crowd of Grim- 
shaw boys who had discovered when Pitt 
was coming. The frosty morning air was 
filled with wild cheers for the boy from 
Beaver Hollow. 

When a Grimshaw boy had been “downed” 
unfairly, they explained, they meant to make 
it up to him. And this was a fellow who 
had backbone ! 

They took the astonished old Nutmeg out 
of the shafts and themselves drew the pung 
round the Concaster streets, the long way 
to the academy. Then they carried Pitt 
round the grounds on their shoulders with 
jubilant hurrahs, and so into the academy, 
which he had left in disgrace. 

“I rather think it will be all right for the 
Beaver Hollow boy who will come after 
me!” Pitt said to himself. 

He lay awake that night, too happy and 


THE BOY FROM BEAVER HOLLOW I 39 

excited to sleep, while the old chimes rang 
out in the midnight stillness, ‘‘Watchman, 
tell us of the night,” just the way that 
Deacon Tukey sang it! And the rain came 
down on his head ! That was a shame. He 
meant to shingle the church himself, perhaps 
by next year. He would build a new one, 
some day! And Abel would be well — well, 
if never very strong. Doctor Gwynne said. 
He (Pitt) was strong. He must look out 
for them all, especially for Heber. Things 
did straighten themselves out, as Heber said, 
if a fellow did his best. 

“We are all in the hands of God — the 
God who sent us his Son.” That was what 
Pastor Goodhue had said. 

Deacon Tukey was singing again, and Pitt 
knew, somehow, that it was under a mended 
roof — and Hannah’s face shone under nod- 
ding pink feathers — 

“Traveler, lo, the Prince of Peace, 

Lo, the Son of God has come!” 





NOV. 6 1900 







library of congress 


D00est.31S5‘^ 


